


I'll Take Your Part

by PrinceOfOneSingleDomain



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Aging, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Character Death, Death, Friendship, Future Fic, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Homeworld (Steven Universe), Hurt/Comfort, Immortality, Moving On, Other, Outer Space, Past Pearl/Rose Quartz (Steven Universe), Past Relationship(s), Personal Growth, Sad, Space Pirates, Time Skips
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-10-20
Packaged: 2019-05-24 04:14:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 15
Words: 34,080
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14947367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PrinceOfOneSingleDomain/pseuds/PrinceOfOneSingleDomain
Summary: Two hundred years after the events in the series, Steven is gone, and he's left a group of Crystal Gems in mourning. After the funeral, Lars and Pearl start sharing their grief with each other, slowly becoming the friend the other might just need, if only for a while.However, it doesn't stay quiet long in Beach City, and soon, the Diamonds give them an ultimatum:Return Pink Diamond's body to us or you're done.Faced with the first decision they have to make without Steven by their side, the Crystal Gems know one thing just as well as the Diamonds - they can't both hold on to Steven forever.





	1. #1

Lars came with his spaceship, his crew and a large dark-blue star on his uniform, much like a medal. The Diamonds came, too - perhaps in hopes to see Pink regenerate after the death of her vessel, perhaps to see her off for good, a funeral they never got the chance to perform in times of war. Connie didn't come. After Steven had let her go into her pink immortality, deciding not to burden her with his slowly ageing body, going so far as to forbid her from watching him die, she had not come back for a long time, close to two years. 

Pearl, Amethyst, Garnet, Lapis and Peridot were there. Even Jasper came back from Mars for a day, looking to everyone just as nonchalante and filled with barely contained rage at _something_ as always, though there was a sour note to every remark she made, and she even made sure not to look at Lapis even once when she might notice, though the blue gem being uncomfortable in her presence had not mattered to Jasper once in the past.

The Diamonds had come on their Palanquins, landing them in the very middle of Beach City with little regard for the natives. No buildings were harmed, however - a show of respect for Pink Diamond? Only they knew. They came with their Pearls and didn't interact with any of the other gems except for, maybe, a quiet nod of recognition. When they saw the terrifying renegade Pearl again, they both remembered times long past, but they seemed so long ago that they hardly mattered now, though they did, and severely so.

The people arrived last, a dozen or so descendants of Beach City denizens from when Steven was a child, a single TV-channel Pearl had allowed to be in the vicinity, and Mark Burgundy, the only person to ever get the Crystal Gems in front of a camera to perform in a music video. But those times were so far away now, though they were merely thirty or forty years ago, that neither Pearl nor Lars were sure anything prior to this moment had actually happened.

The Diamonds and their Pearls sat at the very edge, sure not to infringe upon the other gems' personal matters. They were as far away from the Off-Colours as they could possibly be while still present. But after Pink had spent hours upon hours debating and talking to them during what was to be known as "The Great Discussion", they wouldn't have done much to hurt them, either way. At least as long as they were on Earth - or The Neutral Planet, as it was now called. Lapis took long, furtive glances at Blue - did she remember her? If she did, she didn't show. 

Peridot had beads of sweat running up and down her face whenever Yellow even started to glance in her direction. Though the incident had been a good two hundred years ago, she still wondered if her retribution for calling the yellow giant a "clod" would follow any minute. Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl sat at the very front. The people were spread out in the middle, while Lars and his crew sat in the back, closer to the ocean than to the city, as if Lars wanted to be washed away.

While the coffin was lowered into the ground, the Diamonds exchanged a few words. "Can she regenerate in there?", Blue asked Yellow. Yellow shrugged. "I don't think she'll want to, considering all we know."   


"No", Garnet said, loud enough for the Diamonds to hear, "this is it." She was trying to hold back the tears as much as she could, Ruby and Sapphire giving comfort to each other within her, but it grew too strong once the coffin disappeared beneath the ground. Long rivers of tears ran through the folds and marches of her face. Pearl put a comforting hand around her shoulders.

"He's gone, don't you understand? How can you be so calm?", Garnet said.  


"Oh, I do", Pearl said, "I'll cry later. You know me."  


Garnet wiped a tear from beneath her visor. "Yeah, I do. Sorry."  


"No need. You're still by far the strongest of all of us. I see that even more clearly today. I just... I'm saving it for when I'm alone, I guess", Pearl said.

Amethyst had it the worst. She wasn't even looking at the coffin, had instead turned around and was quietly talking to Peridot, as if nothing out of the ordinary was happening. 

Peridot spared a glance at Pearl. Why was the pale gem so calm? She'd expected her to react the worst. She was always the sensitive one. If she was saying she'd save it for later, Peridot didn't want to be around when it unfolded. Pearl smiled at Peridot. The green gem mouthed "Are you okay?", but Pearl merely shrugged and said she had to be, for now, at least. 

  
Lars, in the back, also looked at Pearl. One of the Rutile twins put her arm on his back and rubbed it. This was what Lars had done that one time when the memories of Homeworld had been too strong, so it felt right to do it when he himself seemed to be haunted. "Thanks, Rut", he said, "but you and Tile probably don't understand."  
"We do", they said in unison, "we lost many friends in the caves."   


"Ah, yeah. Right. I'm sorry."  


"Captain. Are. You. Holding. Up?", Fluorite asked.  


"Yeah", he said, "better than I thought I would."  


"I. Remember. The. Last. Time. We. Came. Back. To. A. Funeral."

"So do I." He kept a picture of Sadie, both the young one he fell in love with and the old one as she lay dying, in a pocket of his uniform. Both pictures elicited the same emotion by now. Grief, grief beyond grief. He'd known how Pearl felt for a good eternity now, but seeing her on the day of Steven's funeral made it even more clear - she had twice lost the same person, at least almost. 

Once the coffin was in, the musician Steven had known well, Mark Burgundy, took to the podium. "You are all welcome to take some earth with a small shovel and bury the coffin with it. I understand this ritual might seem weird to you, but it will help some of you... deal." 

First, Pearl. She got it over with quickly, her expression unreadable. Next, Garnet. Then, Ruby and Sapphire. Those who had never seen the fusion apart gasped before gems seated next to them could explain the reason. Amethyst was next, and with nowhere for her feelings to go, they came out when she shoveled with more energy and vigour than was necessary, angrily throwing the earth down.

"Is this it, huh?", she asked loudly.

Padparadscha whispered "Blue Diamond will start crying", and true, once Lars had looked over at the blue giant, huge tears were rolling out of her eyes. He'd felt one leave his a minute ago, but he'd thought it was his own. Well, it still could have been.

Pearl hugged Amethyst. The purple gem cried out in horror and grief, flung her arms around her friend and remained so for a good five minutes, motionless, while the other gems and humans continued the ritual. Yellow declined the offer, but Blue shrunk down to an appropriate size, had her Pearl go first, then took the shovel and used the last speck of earth. "The coffin is not fully covered", she said. Pearl nodded.

"Such is custom. It will be covered after the ceremony is over and we have left. I don't want to see it happen, but I will, and you can stay until then, too."   


"Thank you."  


"Don't thank me. He told me to invite you."  


"You mean to say..."  


"Of course he knew."

Pearl gave the speech. Burgundy told everyone to seat themselves again, and everyone but the pale gem followed - though Yellow Diamond and her Pearl had never left their seats. Pearl stood up in front of the small crowd - mostly gems, but some of the descendants of Steven's friends in his youth were also there, representatives of the long and illustrious lines of Dewey and Yellowtail.

Her arms were shaking. In an effort to stay upright, she took a small stand out of her gem and leaned heavily against it while speaking. She started her speech with the very first song he wrote - We Are The Crystal Gems - and mentioned how great it would've been had Rose herself heard it. She continued with his early growth, talking about small pictures he had drawn, how much he had been like any other human child and how they had been utterly ill-prepared to handle him. "We Gems do not believe in souls", she said, "religion is foreign on Homeworld." A couple of gems from Lars's crew nodded. 

"It is a nice thought, to think we might see him again." Yellow Diamond scoffed quietly. Blue nodded. Lars just thought about Sadie - the fact Steven was now gone, too, had not fully sunk in yet, even though his hand had been uncontrollable after he'd given the shovel to Rhodonite. It still clenched and unclenched at random. 

Pearl continued.

"During the many years he's been a part of our lives... he was more than a friend. He was a brother, a son, a father, too. Steven was always frighteningly mature for his age - yes, of course he loved cookie cats and all those things. Remember when he got sent so many by the manufacturers for saving them from a monster that he ate nothing but sweets for two weeks? He'd said he'd feel bad if he didn't."

Some people nodded fondly. The second youngest Dewey, a girl around 16 called April, wiped a solemn tear away. She'd seen him breathe his last, seen his gem faintly glow, as if to say goodbye. 

"Steven never asked for statues, for anything at all, really. All he wanted was all of us to get along. Thanks to him, we did. Not always, never all of us at once, but without him, we'd have destroyed each other. Without him, this beach would be emptier now, both in the way his memory fills it and our physical forms are here, now."

The gems were all shedding thick, wet tears due to Blue Diamond's powers, but there surely wouldn't have been a dry eye in the room anyway. "I will remember many things about him forever, until this universe and I with it end - his kindness, the way he played his little guitar, his voice and the looks of the people and gems he healed. Both physically and mentally. Centi is not here, but she sends her regards - she says she can't bear funerals, and can you blame her?"  


There were two other notable absentees: Bismuth and Connie. The smith had declined the offer, saying she could not bear to see either the Diamonds again or face her very mixed feelings for Rose Quartz on a day like this. She had, however, made the gravestone - a combination of Rose's Sword and Steven's Ukulele, intertwined like two vines, with a Diamond in the middle. They were burying three people, after all.   


Connie was different. There were unspoken things there, things that would now never be said. She would come, but not now, not when it was still fresh.  


"A Gem only dies when it is shattered, and that is almost unheard of outside of war", Pearl continued. "We don't know funerals. Humans die all the time. It is part of their ever-changing nature, to go from one state to the other, never stopping, until..."

Pearl paused. Her hands clenched around her abdomen, scratching at her clothes with her fingernails. 

"You can stop if you want to", Garnet said quietly.

Pearl shook her had. "I have to", she whispered.

Lars had never seen her like this, and he didn't want to ever again.

"When his human father Greg died, Steven's body took the form of an old man, weary and done with the world. We brought him back, with time. But as the people around him started passing, his friends, even his small number of enemies, who were really only people who didn't like him though he still liked them, he couldn't take it. Nothing we did could change his physical form back - he was done. There is one night I will always remember from these last weeks. He had left his bed one more time, and I was crying in my room - most of you know me, I tend to do that."

Subdued laughter. Amethyst was grateful for the attempt at a joke and would surely tell Pearl later. "I heard him approach and wanted to stop, smile at him, but I couldn't. I turned away from him. 'Why are you crying', he asked. I didn't say anything, how could I?"

Amethyst found it hard to hold back sobs, but she didn't have to. Lapis was crying loudly behind her, held by Peridot to one side. Jasper was looking at her with pity, her expression stern and serious. As soon as she caught herself, she looked back at Pearl. "He asked again. He just wouldn't back down, he never did. I finally broke - I didn't want to worry him with my worries, he was always looking out for all of us too much, wasn't he?"  


"He was", Lapis said.  


"Thank you, Lapis", Pearl said.  


Peridot stood up. "He helped me find a new home."  


Lapis followed. "Me too."

Lars felt it was his duty to go next, and he stood up, clenching his fists. "He brought me back to life."  
"He did so much for all of us", Pearl said, "so many times." She looked at Jasper. The orange gem nodded solemnly and then looked away, towards the ocean. 

"So sentimental", Yellow Diamond whispered.

Blue nodded. "This is good", she said, "we should have done this for her, too."

  
Pearl continued. "He helped me many times, too. When I couldn't believe Rose held secrets. When I made a terrible mistake, costing me the trust of Garnet before she forgave me. When I didn't want to live anymore, many times over. But I'll always remember that night. I told him I was worried what I'd do when he was gone - that I'd be no-one, truly a Pearl without a purpose. He - he came to me and..." 

She bent over the podium. There they were. She'd been waiting for these tears all day, and here they finally were, thick and heavy.

Lars started crying openly, too.

Every moment he'd ever spent with Steven after he'd become pink came rushing back, the hours on his spaceship talking about everything and nothing, the days he'd spend lying around in the beach-house when he visited. Greg's funeral. His mother's funeral, his father's, too. Sadie's funeral. Funerals upon funerals, only the two of them remaining to see their human friends off. Until now. He'd never hit it off with Connie, so now he was alone, alone with Gems who were not quite like him and never would be, and humans he would always overtake in life and experience. That moment, he missed Steven more than he ever thought possible, even more than he missed Sadie, because now, he truly was the last one left of a time when the adventure had been new, and the future scary, bright and beautiful.

"Please, give me a second", Pearl said. "I'm gonna... Oh God." 

Nobody heard her retch. It was a habit she'd picked up from the brief time Rose had told her to try having a stomach. It felt liberating to retch, she thought, if only for a second.

"He came up to me", she said, ready to get it over and done with, "hugged me from behind. And in a voice I hadn't heard in years, the voice of his young self, when we all were touched by him and his love for the first time, he spoke and said I'd do great. That I'd probably give a speech and make everyone cry, and that I'd always be there... to remember him and... his mother."

  
She let the words sink in. Blue Diamond held Yellow's hand, and the regal Gem let her. No sound. Nothing, just the waves. Yellow Pearl leaned against Blue Pearl, not saying a word, not looking at each other, staring silently at Pearl, transfixed. 

"No matter how pathetic I was at the time", Pearl continued, seeing that Amethyst wanted to interrupt her and say something but silencing her with a trembling hand, "how small and unimportant I felt, Steven always made me feel like the greatest person in the world."  


Me too, most of them thought, me too.  


"If we take one thing from his life, just one thing, let it be this. That the smallest things can make you feel the biggest. That the greatest conflict can be resolved by realizing the people in it are only that, people, regardless of whether they're human or gems. Steven was P-P-..."

  
She still couldn't say it. The seal was too strong. Yellow Diamond said it for her. "Pink Diamond." Blue sobbed.   


"Yes. He was Rose Quartz, something he struggled with his entire life. But, most importantly, he was our friend, our son, our brother, our closest, most admirable special someone in the entire universe. And he became all of these things by being himself, true to his good nature and heart. So let it be known. Let it be known that a human life is long enough. Let it be known that grace may grow on earth, and that love is worth more than anything else, for it is here, on this beach, in every room where people speak his name and beyond. Thank you."  


"Amen", Mark Burgundy said, unable to restrain himself.  


Lars wasn't crying anymore. Instead, he looked at the pale gem, now standing her full five feet eight inches, looking to the rest of the world like a calm island in a storm. The words she'd spoken sounded almost like something Steven would have said, had he ever developed the necessary vocabulary. He'd have to talk to Pearl after this, thank her.

  
"We will now hear Mr. Burgundy perform "Bridge Over Troubled Water" on Steven's Ukulele. Afterwards, you are welcome to join the Crystal Gems in the Greg Universe Memorial Van Museum. Those who do not fit inside", she looked at the Diamonds, "are still welcome to stay for a while." Blue nodded, Yellow rolled her eyes. "Thank you all very much for coming. I'm sure he would have loved to see you here, though he'd probably feel really bad about making you cry and try to make up for it by, you know, using everything in his power." 

She stepped off the podium, sat down next to Garnet and just sunk into herself, not moving, not making any sound. Burgundy took Steven's small instrument, walked up to the podium and started singing, in a voice so divine and beautiful it wasn't hard to tell why Steven had loved his music so much. "Who is this?", Rhodonite asked Lars. 

"He's a famous musician on earth", he said, "and a close friend of the Crystal Gems. Of Steven, at least."

"Dear", Fluorite said, "it. is. beautiful."  


_"I'll take your part/when darkness comes/and pain is all around/like a bridge over troubled water/I will lay me down..."_  


Lars was sure Pearl had chosen the song herself, and if not her, it had to have been... no, it could only have been her. Or Steven. If Steven had chosen the song for his own funeral, Lars didn't know if he could take any more. 


	2. #2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "You must understand that things will inevitably change now", Blue says.  
> "Yes", Peal answers, too tired to look at her, "but give us some time first. And what could you want here, anyway?"  
> "That is true." Blue thinks for a moment, her face downcast. "You will have your time."

Lars watched Blue Diamond return to her actual size and walk off with Yellow, who berated her sister for stooping so low. "I will make my own decisions", Blue said, "and if you decide not to respect their rituals, that is yours."  


"Fine", Yellow said, "but don't overdo it. We are still who we are, no matter where we go."

Pearl walked ahead quickly, reaching the Van Museum before him. The gems had prepared a small amount of food with the help of April Dewey. It was food usually not served at a funeral, like fries or small hamburgers, but it only ended up making Lars feel more sad. They'd tried so hard, but what for? He put a hand around Rut.

"Sir?", the gem said.

"I'm not feeling so well, Rut."

Tile looked over her sister's shoulder. "Do you want to lie down, Sir?"  


"No, I'll be fine, I just need a second."

April approached him. "Lars, are you okay?"   


"I'm alive. Mostly."  


"Yeah, that's what I see."  


"It's a tough day for all of us, I think."  


"Yeah", April said, "you should come over to visit me this week. If you want to talk, you know."

She had been with him when he died, along with Pearl, though you couldn't tell by looking at her. Her expression seemed too concerned, too present to have seen anyone, let alone Steven, die in the past few days. But the young Dewey had cried her tears already, with Pearl hunched over Steven in the next room.   


"I will", Lars said, "but I'd rather be alone for a moment right now."

April nodded and left Lars and the Off-Colours without saying another word, quickly scurrying outside. She shivered under Jasper's glare, but stayed remarkably calm with and even smiled at the Diamonds, offering them a couple of biscuits while they were talking to Jasper outside. Lars watched Blue take a small biscuit with her giant hand and eye it curiously. Yellow didn't even look at April, much less take anything from her.

"Jasper", she said, "I suppose you've been busy on Mars these past years."  


"Yes, my Diamond."  


"I presume I cannot persuade you to join the forces again?"  


"I fear there is a lot left to do, but I will join you once I'm done."  


"When will that be?"  


"In about ten earth years."  


"Ah, in no time at all, then. Lovely. And... if it ever comes to..."  


"I will decide when the time comes."  


"I guess that's as good as I get from you. You are not irreplaceable, Jasper. And remember, as it stands, you still have a home on Homeworld. Don't push your luck. Now that Pink is gone, you belong to me again, and the fact I let you do your stupid little show on Mars of all places is a show of my grace, and nothing less."  


Jasper lowered her head and clenched her fists tightly. "Yes, I understand", she said. Yellow smiled down at her.  


"Good."

Lars stopped hearing in on the conversation. Listening to the Diamonds was always depressing. The only time he'd ever had to do business with one was when he had been asked to transport a very secret document to Steven by an anonymous client. Padparadscha said "You will drop the cube given to you by Blue Diamond" a minute after he'd accidentally dropped it, and the secret was out. 

He'd never mentioned it to the blue gem - how would he have? - but still knew she trusted him and his reputation enough to give him such sensitive intel. It must have been a mere fifty, sixty years ago, just before he had pulled off the big prison escape. She never would have given it to him afterwards, but then again, being somehow linked to Steven had a habit of making time line up. He'd watched it together with Steven.

A distorted voice, most likely also Blue Diamond, talking about the way Pink Diamond had been made, her powers and the deep relationship that had once connected her to Blue. Steven and Lars took a long week off after that. Blue had a handle on grief and sadness quite unlike anyone else. Lars remembered them standing where the Greg Universe Memorial Museum was now, leaning against the old car wash, slurping ice cream and just staring ahead, dumbfounded. 

He saw Lapis standing in a corner, Peridot talking to Garnet not too far away. Lars nodded at the Rutile twins, took his arm off Rut's shoulder and went over to the blue gem. She barely lifted her head. "Lars", she said. "It's me", he answered. They stood in silence, listening to some of the conversations around them. Rhodonite was talking to Padparadscha about the first time they'd seen Steven, how he had brought their Captain back to life. 

Peridot said she had a bunch of Steven's old movies in the barn, and asked Garnet whether she wanted to have them back. He didn't hear her answer, but instead saw her pull Peridot into a long, tender hug. "Everyone's helping each other", Lars said, "I think it's what he would have wanted."  


"What does that matter now?", Lapis asked. "He's gone."  


Lars sighed. No nonsense. It had been exactly what he had needed after Sadie had died, wandering the streets of Beach City with Lapis while talking about nothing but the hard truth, when none of the advice and helpful things Steven had said had helped at all.

"Lapis", he said, "if you need to talk, you helped me once. I'll help you too."  


"I don't think anyone can help me right now."  


"Me neither, but we can try. You're not alone. And... if you want to get off the earth, come with us, I can make that happen."  


Lapis looked at him, looked up for the first time during the entirety of the funeral.   


"Why?"  


"I don't know, it feels right."  


She took a second to think it over, seriously considering it. Her glance wandered to Peridot, who looked back at her while still holding on to Garnet. Lapis shook her head.  


"No, I'll stay, but thank you. If you guys need me, you know how to reach me."  


"Peridot."  


"Exacty."

Pearl stood by the bar, where strictly non-alcoholic drinks were being served at her orders, and took condolences. Garnet received just as many from the gems and most of the people, Amethyst as well, but everyone who hadn't actually known Steven very closely came to Pearl, and then, maybe, to the others. She was the most public face of the Crystal Gems, the one people turned to when there were logistics to discuss or questions to ask. The organizer. Certainly the only one who had studied human culture to such a degree that she could make decisions based on their politics and history. 

Now, after Steven was gone, it would be even harder to avoid human contact, and she dreaded to find out just how much Steven helped smooth public relations over. He had made the Gems human for two hundred years. How would humanity treat them now, after coming into the spotlight again with the arrival of the diamonds all those years ago, and never leaving it since?

Pearl remembered her single visit to the United Nations a good sixty years ago, at Steven's behest, and how she hadn't been nearly as nervous before her speech as she had been today. April's father, Antoine Dewey, pulled her to the side for a moment.

"We will not bother you for a month or two", he said, "take your time to grieve. Then, we will have to talk."   


"I guess your people don't waste time."   


"We certainly don't. I had to ask them for the months."  


"Thank you, Tony."  


"Hey. Everything for you guys. Thank Steven for that."  


"Oh, I will."  


"That's... that's not what I meant."  


"Tony, we might have an understanding, but I didn't come here to talk politics."  


"I... I'm sorry."  


She sighed.   


"It's alright. Now go do me a favour and talk to Amethyst before she swallows the tables."  


He went back to the stand where Amethyst was eating literally everything, including the plates, and asked her how her garbage heap was growing. Glad to talk about anything but Steven, she started telling him its new discoveries in detail, and Pearl smiled. Things would go back to normal, eventually.

Then she remembered that there had never been a time when both Steven and Rose Quartz were gone. She had been created for Pink Diamond, and had then lived with Rose, then Steven. This was new. There was no normal now. No such thing. In all her years, she had never felt exactly this, and the new feeling hit her like a punch to the gut. She felt like emptying her nonexistent stomach again and quickly stepped outside.

Lars was talking to Rhodonite when he saw Pearl stumble out of the room. 

"Is she gonna be okay?", Rhodonite asked. Garnet was already walking after her. "Yeah, I think she might", Lars said.  


"You better make sure", Rut said. "Didn't you want to talk to her, anyway? Who's to say she'll be back, or anywhere at all."  


"Fluorite, what do you think?"  


The large gem had barely fit into the cramped space, opting to curl herself around the model of a 2085 next-generation van with chrome doors. "You. Do. What. You. Think. Is. Right. Captain."  


Lars looked after Pearl. The picture of Sadie weighed heavily on his body. "I'll go see her." He nodded at the Off-Colours. After he'd left the building, he faintly heard Padparadscha say that Pearl was breaking, and he hurried along, running past the Diamonds. 

Yellow Diamond was still talking to Jasper, both gems remaining calm and level-headed. Jasper occasionally let out a grunt of approval or disapproval, but she made sure not to show too much emotion before the Diamonds. Lars walked past. He spotted a sliver of square black hair in the distance when a calm voice called out to him. "Are you the earth man saved by Pink Diamond?"   


"One of them, anyway", Lars said.

Blue Diamond was looking at him intently, scanning his body for anything unusual. Her face was huge, but somehow pretty. Lars remembered her image on the prison walls.

"You are her shade of pink", she said. Lars nodded.

Blue reached out a hand. Lars flinched away. "Woah, what do you wanna do to me? Do you wanna eat me or something?"  


"Don't be scared, child", she said, "I will merely... stretch out your hand for me, child."  


Reluctantly, he did as he was told, though his eyes were busy keeping Garnet in view. Pearl must be either ahead of her or even further way, though Garnet could probably find her with her Future Vision. Blue Diamond touched the tip of his finger with hers. Her hand was more than enormous next to his - he felt as if a mountain was reaching out to him.

"You feel much like her", she then said, "but not quite. If you wish, you can go now."

She removed her hand and gave him a long, stern look from beneath her hood. "You are special, human", she said, "I hope you appreciate the opportunities you have been given."   


Lars grit his teeth. Yeah, sure. If you like seeing everyone around you slowly die from old age. And be unable to give your woman a child, ever. Not that you guys would understand. 

Garnet had stopped just before the Beach House. There was a new house somewhere next to where the Barn was, shared by Steven, Centi and Bismuth for the better half of a century, but during his last days, Steven had preferred to stay in the Beach House. At least that's what Pearl told Lars when he had asked her where he died. Her voice had been so calm, sounding nothing like she the speech today when she had called him in the Sun Incinerator, but the longer the conversation had dragged on, the more it had started shaking. "I better stop now", she'd said, "there's so much to clean up here. Lots of equipment that ended up not doing a damn thing."   


"Do you wanna talk, Pearl?"  


"There really is nothing to talk about, Lars."  


"Well, if you say so."  


"I do. I'm hanging up."  


"See you soon."  


"Yes."  


That had been the most they'd spoken for a while. Lars noticed that their relationship had always been exclusively Steven-based. Hey Pearl, where's Steven? Hey Lars, take good care of Steven out there. Him asking her whether she wanted to talk had been a brave new step for the two of them, probably the first time he ever consciously noticed she was there, more than a doting face behind Steven or a fighter in combat. 

Garnet noticed him approach, but made no move to greet him. It seemed like she was deep in thought. Should he disturb? "Garnet", he said, "where's Pearl gone?"  


"She's inside", Garnet said.  


"Then... then why aren't you there with her? You know how bad she's feeling!"  


"I know. There's no need to shout."  


"Sorry."  


"I'm feeling quite under the water, too."  


"Yeah, I - I know. But you guys got each other."  


"That's true."  


Lars wanted to scream. This was all going nowhere, and the Steven-sized hole in any conversation after his death was so apparent he wanted to fill it with fists and fury.  


"I'll to talk to her", he said, "you should stay here."  


"You shouldn't go in there."  


"Why not? Wouldn't that be what Steven would have wanted?"  


"Steven... was special." Garnet nodded, as if to confirm her own statement. "He had a special ability with people. You don't."  


"Hey."  


"You know it's true."  


"... Yeah, I guess. Still sucks to hear, though. Urgh, Garnet, we're wasting time!"  


"If you go inside", Garnet said slowly, "you might see something you're not prepared to see, and have to do some things you haven't done before."  


"What's she doing in there? Destroying the temple?"  


"No, she's trying to destroy herself. Or she will. Soon."  


"I'm going."  


"Why?"  


"I have to."  


"That's good. Come get me if you need me. Use this to contact me."  


She gave him a pager. Lars nodded, though he had no idea how to use the thing. The conversation had been too long already, God only knew what Pearl was doing in there. It was time to be Steven. When he approached, he could already hear the wailing through the walls.


	3. #3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: This chapter grew longer than I had anticipated, the next part will be uploaded this Sunday. I hope you enjoy what's already here - this chapter went through a few versions before this one started feeling right. Any sort of criticism is very welcome.

It was something else entirely, a world of sadness even more powerful than the bubble of feelings Blue Diamond created around herself. Once he'd stepped into the beach house, there was no way back. There was sniffling, crying, silence, screaming, tearing at fabric, hair being ripped out, dry-heaving. He froze in place. There was absolutely no way he had the power to watch this unfold, let alone stop any of this. Pearl's voice, Pearl's everything, was coming from where Steven's old bed had been. He tentatively climbed up a couple of stairs. She was lying on the bed, yelling into the pillows. Her entire body was tense to the point of rupture, her legs kicking behind her while her arms grabbed the pillows so hard he saw their innards unravel. He sat down on the stairs and waited for the worst of it to stop so he could come up. Eventually, she had to tire herself out. 

An hour passed like this, then two. Just when he thought she was done, there came another fit of tears and hysteria, clutching at pillows and covers so hard it made the fabric tear, which only seemed to agitate Pearl further. He heard her punch against a wall. The wall exploded in a fury of wood, and she screamed out in agony. 

"How could I?", she said quietly, then repeated it louder, as if to hear her own voice, "how could I?"

 The water outside seemed to get louder with every wave, and soon, Lars felt as if the entire world had shrunken to this room and the beach just outside of it, and eternal island of grief flying aimlessly through space. He touched his scar. All the memories came flooding back, but he especially remembered seeing Steven cry at a meteor shower, just after the death of his father, and Lars pulling Steven into a close embrace, as if he could shield him from anything.

But death was all around, and maybe it had already been inside Steven at that moment.

"Thanks for taking me here, Lars", he had said, "see you", and disappeared inside of his hair.

The beach house seemed too small to exist in now, nothing against the vast expanse of that evening. He would never tell anyone that the tears found him in that godforsaken place, haunted by Pearl's own crying, just when she had needed him, someone, anyone.

But cry he did, for Steven and Sadie and for nobody else, for Pearl's loss. Maybe he wasn't strong enough to do this. Lapis was easy, she kept it inside, all she needed was someone to be there. Pearl seemed like something different entirely, he didn't even fathom how deep the well of these feelings went if it still wasn't dry after all this time.

" _I’m by your side when times get rough/And friends just can't be found/Like a bridge over troubled water..._ " When. Not if. That moment, he knew who had chosen the song. There was no way back. He had a mission now. 

As soon as the next quiet moment came, Pearl’s voice growing less agitated, her physical struggling easing up, he found his resolve.  


He stood up and climbed the rest of the stairs. She didn't even notice him approach, her arms wrapped around her body, looking out toward the windows and the wall she had destroyed. Shivering. Her hand gently caressed the side of her cheek, then dug into it with sharp nails, then turned gentle and kind again, as if she didn't know whether to comfort or to punish.

She was lying in Steven’s bed, her nose buried in his blankets. He reached out an arm to touch her.

"What am I doing?", she said. He stopped. "What am I even doing anymore?"

A sniffle, a sob.

"Why did you have to leave me again?"

She was shaking. Her body slowly collapsed into a foetal position, her hands wrapping even more tightly around her head.

"Just leave me here, right? Why would you want to stay for me."

Her hands went higher, to her gem.

"I could just..."

She didn't finish the sentence, but Lars saw her fingers tightening around the gem embedded in her forehead. Could she possibly… He snatched her hand away, turning her around in the process, eliciting a surprised yelp from the pale gem.

He saw the moisture dried by her eyes, her hard body somehow making the tear-tracks glisten in the sun. For a moment, there was nothing but the silence of her eyes between them, wary, tired, scared.

"What are you doing here?"

Lars didn't really know what to say. He was still holding on to her hand. The truth, then. "I don't know." His fingers relaxed, and Pearl slipped her hand out of his.   


"How long have you been here? How much did you see?”  


"Not very long, and… not much.”  


"You're lying."  


"Yes."  


"Just... oh God."  


She retched. There was nothing to vomit out, so she just spent some time dry-heaving, Lars sitting idly by, not sure what to do or say to make any of this better.  


"I really wish nobody would see me this way", she said.   


"I'm not sure you should be alone right now."  


"That's all I should be."  


"Trust me, there will  be time to be alone."  


"I'm not so sure about that."  


"Why?"

Pearl looked at him, her eyes finished, her face sunken. "I knew this was coming", she said, "I just didn't think it would hit me quite this bad. Bad, yes, but I can't even think right now. Everything is in chaos. I'm useless." 

Her physical form flickered, briefly looking much younger than he'd ever seen her.

"And he's gone. He's gone forever, he's not coming back, and Rose isn't, either. If she is, it might be even worse."

She shook her head.

"I'm just so tired. So tired."

Had she always had these deep wrinkles around her eyes, and he had simply never noticed? She looked so unbearably old staring down at her feet, but small like a child, her hands idly petting her own shoulders.

"These past few weeks have been hell on earth."

She buried her face in her hands.

"I just want it to stop."

Quiet sobs echoed through the Beach House, and the ocean soothed their spectres through the wall Pearl had broken.

“And you know what the worst part is?”, she said quietly. “He wasn’t even killed. He didn’t die for a reason. He just… tired out of it. I wish I could, too. It would be so easy, because what is even the point of anything anymore? I knew it the moment he was gone. That whatever this was, it’s over now.”

Lars searched for words, but every time he dove into that well, he came back empty-handed. There was nothing to say, and if he went too deep, he might just discover that he and Pearl were more alike than he thought. She continued, her voice hugging the waves, the creaking of the Beach House’s walls or the small caws of seagulls for anything to hold on to. The distance between her and Lars seemed infinite, but at least he was there, he told himself, maybe this was already something. 

The thought that she might have done something to herself had he not been there scared him.

“I’m just so tired of missing someone, all the time, every time, every day I wake up, and it was okay for a while”, Lars couldn’t hear what Pearl said because she lost control over her features for a moment, simply doubling over and mumbling to herself, “it was, it was, it was, and now this, please – if someone could just – could just make it stop for me. But I can’t ask anyone to do it. And if I – if I do it myself…”  


“Pearl.”  


“If I do it myself, I’d break their hearts.” She took a moment to collect herself, straightened her hair and looked up at Lars. “You must think me weak and spineless.”

Too many possible things bubbled to the front of his mind, so much there was to say that he could not, not yet.  


"I know you’re not, Pearl. Steven told me all about it. I'm really glad you're talking to me", Lars said, "you can call me anytime when we've left, too."

And he meant it. If he was frank with himself, he couldn’t imagine Lapis coming along with the Off-Colours – but getting a call from Pearl, asking her how she was doing, talking about Steven? That sounded alright.  


Pearl laughed, but it was the laugh of a desperate person, the kind of laughter that caught in the throat and never really left. She covered her face with her hands again, only her nose sticking out between them.  


"You really don't know what you're doing by offering this", she said through her fingers, "I haven't been myself for such a long time. It'll be even worse now. You don't need me, I'm fine with Garnet and Amethyst."  


"Are you sure? The offer still stands.”

The Crystal Gems cuddled up together, hugging Pearl, holding on to her hair and her legs as if they were cradling someone. It sounded good, but could they do it now? Pearl needed someone, and they surely had their own wounds to lick.  


“Can they help you right now?”, Lars asked.  


"Amethyst can. She understands. She's not good at talking about these things, but she does understand. Garnet... no, I don't think so. Or if she does, I don't believe her. You know, because..."  


"She's a fusion.”  


“It’s not like that, I mean…”  


“She’s never really alone.” We are, Lars thought, all alone. No matter where we are. He had an urge to look at Sadie again, but there would be time later. Pearl nodded.

They said nothing for a while. Lars listened to the ocean. Pearl would start and stop crying quietly, sobbing with a hand covering her mouth. "I'm such a mess", she said. "I look awful, I bet, but that's to be expected."  
"You did a great job out there today."  


"No, I didn't. I screwed up. I couldn't even say her old name."  


"You're wrong. You held it together really well, better than anyone else could have.”  


"If that's what you call keeping it together... You’re just saying this to make me feel better. I’m sure Garnet would’ve done a great job, too. And what do you know about speeches?" Lars smiled at her, and though she did not return it, he felt something change in the room, as if the tone of her voice had altered the air around them.  


"Woah, what's that supposed to mean? I'm a genius at speeches. Remember that time when...", and he wanted to tell the story, to fill the room with something other than death, but she stopped him.  


"Yes, now that you mention it." She looked down again, her eyes filling with tears. "I don't know what to do now", she said, "I'm done."  


It was too much. Lars had to get out of there, call Garnet, call someone, heck, even Lion, but something glued him to place, a feeling so heavy it didn't let him leave. Pearl looked up at him after a while, her eyes still wet from crying. Her hands, too. 

"How close were you two?", Pearl asked. 


	4. #4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Here's the second part. As always, I hope you enjoy it - soon, we'll take a look at a new resident of Beach City, but it might be a little while until the next chapter is up.

"How close were you two?"

Her eyes were large, her head tilted inquisitively towards Lars, but her voice had been so nervous, so anxious, that he wasn't sure how much he should tell her. The meteor shower? The time they ended up on a mission together, Steven lying to the Crystal Gems for days so he could help Lars do something entirely too dangerous? The time they'd thought it was it before Lars managed to open a portal?

Lars noticed tears running down his cheeks almost immediately, but he did not wipe them away. As Pearl had shown him her true self, so would he - the weak-willed little boy he had been before Steven turned him pink was still there, somewhere, buried under years of years and even more years. He'd let Steven see it, all those pathetic little evenings after Sadie had died, but he hadn't let it return these past years. Now, it was time. But one thing was off - he remembered how each death before had shaken him to the core. 

"I’m not sure what you mean by that, but I guess we were pretty good friends up until, like, two years ago", he said. His voice caught in his throat, but Pearl waited patiently before he continued. "I guess he didn't want me to know. Well, I knew he didn't feel good, Garnet told me at some point, and then... then you called. And that was all.” 

“I remember making that call. I really didn’t want to.”

“Why did you? Couldn’t someone else do it?”

“Garnet was already telling the people of Beach City, that should’ve been my duty. Amethyst went to tell Lapis and Peridot, then Bismuth. I got you and Jasper.”

“How did Jasper take it?”

“She just stared. Then she hung up pretty quickly. She’s not the type to… share.”

“Well, if it works for her.”

“Steven did visit you often before… this, right?”

“At the worst times. At some point, we figured out how he could ask me if now was a good time to come out."

"How did you do that?" She was asking questions. Lars had to keep her here, just above the dark surface of whatever was inside her, that’s what Steven would do.

"He would poke a small stick that looked like an insect out of my hair. If I took it, he would climb out. If I just swatted it way without taking it, he'd climb back in."

Pearl smiled. For a second, it seemed like she felt better somehow, then Lars saw even more tears forming in her eyes, then quickly blinked away or running down her face. "That sounds just like him. God. I'm sorry. I really don't want to start crying again, I've cried enough for a lifetime, but it's just..."

Lars put a hand on her shoulder. She looked at it, not sure what to do with it, not really wanting to do anything but bury her face somewhere so nobody would see the tears. But Lars was there, and he wasn’t leaving, and maybe that was a good thing.

Lars barely recognized his reflection in her eyes. He looked so much older, even though his body hadn't changed a bit in two hundred years. But there was something else there, and if he could have taken a better look at his eyes, he would have understood what it was. 

"I felt the same when Sadie died. You're actually holding up fine compared to me."

She looked at him with her eyebrows raised. "Are you kidding? I destroyed a wall."

"I blasted a moon into two back then."

"Oh." 

"Yeah. Don't give someone like me weapons when I'm upset, it could end bad for literally everyone involved." 

"Was it the moon of a planet like Earth?" 

"No, the planet was long barren, a gas giant. But still. Who knows what type of damage I did." He shrugged. "It helped. Did destroying the wall help?" 

"I'm not sure. I thought - maybe we'd keep all this stuff here like it used to be. Like he did with his father's van." 

"That's dumb, though." 

Pearl flinched away from Lars, her arms coming up before her body, as if to shield her self from his words. "How can you say that? We have to preserve his memory, like we did with… and who are you to tell me what’s dumb? I don’t even..."

"Steven had a full human life. Two, even. And you keep talking about changing and moving on - Steven dying, it's not like a teen who leaves and never comes back." 

It had sounded much more cohesive in his head, a small speech about having to move on even in the face of something shattering the ground beneath your feet, but he simply didn't have the mental capacity anymore. His words strained, his arms hurt, his entire body felt like it would fall apart at any moment. The day had taken its fair share out of him. He was sick of crying, too. He hadn't cried at all since the last time he'd come to Earth for a funeral. 

Pearl took a moment to compose herself, then slumped, her arms relaxing so much they plopped to the side like dead. She took a long, hard look at the room around her, the wall already destroyed, and nodded. Defeated.

“But it’ll stay like this for a while at least. I need this.”

“That’s alright.”

"And it sure feels like he died a child, like I barely knew him. Two hundred years is nothing to someone like me, no matter how much you try to make it count. I wanted to see humanity change by his side. I wanted to do so many things, or even nothing, just... as long as he was there."

She straightened her hair back, her hands shivering in the process. Lars wanted to do something, anything. 

"Do you know how old I am?", she asked. 

"Five thousand years? That's what Steven said once." 

"I'm older."

"Oh man. That's insane." 

"You think so?" 

"How do you bear it?" 

"Wha-?" 

"Nevermind."

Lars felt like he'd let a long-kept secret escape. He had never complained to Steven, though he knew he must have understood at some point, even without being told. After Sadie’s death, maybe a week or two later, when Lars had already been back in space on some wild, especially dangerous mission, Steven had called and apologized, not saying for what.

Lars never even told Rhodonite, his closest companion in space, or any of the others. Padparadscha knew, but she didn't speak of it. He wouldn't break his silence now, when he was needed.  

"You don't have to tell me", Pearl said when Lars didn't speak again, "it's none of my business, really. But, for now, I would be grateful if you stayed here for the night." 

"Why?" 

"I... I don't want this place to be empty. And I can't stay here. It would kill me." 

"Understood. I'll tell the Off-Colours to stay nearby." 

"How long will you be here?" 

"A week or so. Have a look around. See who's new. It's been twelve years since I've been here at all. April could barely walk then." 

“Can’t you stay longer? I… he… talked to you in a way he couldn’t with us, and I…” 

A thunderous roar came from the skies. Two hands were taking off. One of them stopped to wave goodbye before it disappeared into the atmosphere, the other was already long gone. 

"The Diamonds", Pearl said quietly. 

Lars nodded. Now there were none left on Earth. None alive. Only a single pink gem in a coffin, never to glow again.  

"It must seem incredibly funny to them that a mighty Diamond is now contained by wood." 

"It is, if you think about it", Lars said. "I don't think anything can contain him."

"What do you mean?"

"He's here now, isn't he?"

"I don't believe in these things, Lars."

"You don't have to."

Clouds slowly covered the places where they had seen the hands, as if they had never really been there after all.

"Let's go see how it looks now, with everyone gone. I think we should"; Lars told Pearl. 

Seeing Sadie’s grave had made it final. Like a stab to the gut, it had helped get the bad blood out, at least the part that would leave – the rest stayed. 

"I don't think I can”, Pearl said, shaking her head. No. Not yet. Maybe – maybe he’d come back, walk through those doors and tell her he stayed just for her, for them, for whatever, as long as he stayed. 

"We can go together." 

Lars extended a hand. After a moment of painful consideration, Pearl took it. She held onto it, not standing up or leaving with Lars, simply taking the contact, the shade of pink, the somehow inhuman warmth of Lars’s form. He couldn’t tell what she was thinking about, but she was staring into space so intently he felt like he’d see someone if he turned around. 

"And Pearl", he said, "thank you. The stuff you said out there. Really good stuff. It helped me, and probably a lot of the others too." 

"Thank you. It was hard, so hard, but I try my best. He’d want me to." 

"I know, you always do. Steven told me." 

"What else did he tell you about me?" 

Should he say it? There might never be a worse time. Or a better one. "He told me - I'm not sure if I should tell you this." She was looking up at him. He had never seen her from this angle, and it made her look so incredibly small, like any wind might carry her away. She had seemed huge on the podium, but now, he realized just how little space she actually took up. 

"Come on, it can't be that bad”, she said, trying to smile, failing, settling on a curious expression. 

"You don't even know." 

"Go on, tell me." 

"He told me that he loved you very, very much. He called you 'mom' once, Pearl." 

It had been a slip of the tongue, Steven having forced Pearl to write a letter to Lars just because, the contents merely telling him what planets to avoid on the way to their next destination. “And here’s one from Mom!”, he’d said, corrected himself immediately. But it had happened. Maybe he’d called the others, especially Garnet, “Mom” as well, but Lars only knew of this one time. And now there was someone who needed to hear it so much that it stopped her in her tracks, motionless. 

“H-he did?” Pearl’s hand clenched around his. “He did, you’re not lying, he did? Please. Please tell me you’re kidding.” 

“He did, just one time”, he said, wincing from the pain in his palm. Pearl was welling up again, sadness and grief and anguish and just this feeling of being as empty as a clock without its cogs rising from her stomach to her head. He pulled her into a hug and waited until she was done shivering, done moaning and punching his back. He remembered what Steven had said the day Sadie died. Lars took a deep breath and whispered into Pearl’s ear, not sure if she could even hear it. 

“Shush, it’s alright. I’ve got you. Cry as much as you like. He’s worth it. He always is.” Maybe she felt his voice shaking, his arms falter, but she didn’t say a thing, she simply let him hold her for what felt like days, crying, laughing, doing all the things Rose had once fallen in love with humanity for. 

The Crystal Gems and the Off-Colours found them hugging on the couch, so tired they were barely even conscious, and decided to leave them be for a while. Though nobody could tell why Garnet was smiling, they didn't ask. It had been hard, weird day. A smile towards its end, however small, was already too good to be true. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's almost like he's here, but only almost. I don't know how long I can take her on, how long I can be a pillar for someone this shaken, but I have to, I have to.


	5. #5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: This chapter, like the last one, grew a bit larger than expected, about 3500 words, and it feels good to split it again - this way, I can also upload slightly more often, since I can edit both parts of a chapter separately. Expect the second part sometime next week, around Wednesday, then a short break after that.

When Lars approached the ship, it was usually filled with laughter at a "prediction" Padparadscha had made, or another panicked remark by Rhodonite, or Fluorite quietly explaining something very old and sacred to the Rutile twins. But it was quiet now, no sound coming from within except for a whisper, a mutter, or somebody sitting down. He would go in soon, surely, he would just take a moment to enjoy the sights and sounds after saying goodbye to Pearl. 

The morning around the ship was a radiant red, coating the ship in sunlight and sparkling water from the sea – they had landed it as closely to the beach as possible, on a small plateau next to where Steven’s grave now stood. Lars looked at it in the morning sun. 

Pink, Rose and Steven all stood behind each other, each one a different size, but their actual measurements were reversed. Pink was the smallest, barely having made an impact as herself. Rose was larger, looming like a shadow behind the gem she’d always been. Last was Steven, huge, not Diamond-sized, but almost like a memorial statue. Their poses were neutral. Pink was looking ahead, at the spectator, Rose toward the earth, Steven to the stars and beyond, a hand on his heart. Lars sighed. 

He didn’t know much about statues, but it seemed like a good work, and when he’d meet Bismuth, he would have to ask her how long it took her to make it. His boots heavy, he walked toward the ship.

It was silent now. He walked in. The Off-Colours were quietly talking to each other, then turned to him, faces flushed. 

"Captain Lars", Rut said. Tile continued. "We were just... talking about you."  The tension in the room was palpable. 

  
"What else would you be talking about but your amazing, star-studded Captain?" Lars made a pose, framing his face with a couple of fingers around it, eyes sparkling. 

The Off-Colours relaxed, Tile even giggled a little. 

"You. Know. It's. True", Fluorite said. 

"Lars is back!", Padparadscha said, lightening the mood even further. 

  
"So, what were you guys talking about?", Lars asked. 

  
Rhodonite cleared her non-existent throat - a habit picked up from two hundred years of travelling with Lars. "We were just... wondering if your form would be able to uphold itself. After Steven's passing."

"Ah, I see. Well, I can assure you I'm still here, and I haven't felt anything change, not really."

It had been the first thing he'd checked in the morning, right after listening to Pearl talk about how sorry she was, how she never should have behaved that way, how he certainly had his own issues to attend to. How he had been so kind, entirely too kind to her, how she would have to be on her own with the Crystal Gems after he left, anyway.

He'd given a quick answer, something like "Really, don't worry, it's fine", and then watched the pale gem leave. Immediately after she had gone, he went up and checked his face in the mirror. Still the same scar across his eye, the same shade of pink, his hair the same sort of washed out pink-white, as if Steven could just burst out of it any second. 

He had checked his uniform - there were a couple of light stains where Pearl had cried, but nothing too bad. He'd expected to wake up still soaked, the same way he fell asleep last time. It had felt so good to let go - the flight to Steven was absolutely horrendous, Emerald sending her usual number of screaming messages. She'd even called his very private messaging device once, the one he had stolen from her base in the very beginning, the one Rhodonite had looked at for hours, determining there was no way to tell their location if he just removed a single piece. It was old gem tech, and he was glad to have it - a small screen, buttons on the bottom, a large diamond insignia on the back. Yellow was highlighted, so this must have been from the first era, the one when Yellow hadn’t been quite so focused on seeming high-tech and advanced. 

Emerald was the only one who could contact him, and in the beginning, she'd send threats, jokes about Off-Colours, rebukes to some witty remark Lars had made at her. Now, there was a single message on the device, a voice message. 

  
"Where are you? It’s a bit boring without you, you know."

  
She sounded like she had that time they'd spent on a planet alone, surviving in a tribal society for two weeks before their ships found them. Well, it had mostly been avoiding each other and said tribe for the most part, until those last few days when everything on that earth had been out to get them, Emerald making literally every single person that place harboured angry by "accidentally" destroying one of their statues. 

"We'll colonize you!", she'd screamed, "We'll colonize all of you!"

"Emerald, if we don't leave right now, you'll be a crown jewel!", he'd said, dragging her along.

The uneasy truce they'd left in had been broken the next day, but some part remained. It was a story that had excited Steven to no end when he'd told it. Full of adventure, cunning strategy, hiding away in deep dark caves, discoveries of the beauty of an entirely foreign nature, and a bit of Romance too, maybe, Lars hadn’t been too sure. He answered her voice message.

"I won't tell you where I am, so go ahead and try again", he said, "but I'm fine and I'll be back in the system. Someday. Don’t get all fussy without me, Merry.”

Eternally circling each other. Just like they had promised. 

A hotel had been cleared for the Off-Colours at Pearl's request, so they could enjoy a bit of earth air and atmosphere instead of staying in their ship all the time. Rhodonite curled up with a book in her room, the Rutile twins explored the city, still surprised nobody seemed to bat an eye at their form, and Padparadscha was given a small amount of money to play at the hotel’s casino. Fluorite caught some sun on top of the hotel, looking to everyone passing by as if she'd always been there, unmoving and peaceful, fully contained and infinite within herself. Lars told them to take their time, to contact him whenever there was any question, not to fear the people of Beach City. This was Gem Country. They wouldn't turn on their own, especially not with Steven's memory so fresh in their minds. 

The air in Rhodonite’s room was incredibly hot, sweltering, but Lars barely felt it anymore. The sea breeze, on the other hand, made him remember so many things at once he felt as if every breath was filling his brain in tandem with his lungs. Sadie. Breathe out. Steven. Breathe out. His parents. The Donut Shop. Mr. Smiley.

"What are you going to do now?" Rhodonite flipped the page of "Isaac Asimov's True Robot" while Lars was seated on her bed. She’d once said she was interested in what humans thought the universe would look like, and had been floored when she had discovered that yes, some of their thoughts weren’t that far off. It had been hard teaching her how to read, but then again, they had had so much time on the ship between destinations that all of the Off-Colours could read a couple of simple books now. Padparadscha particularly liked The Little Prince. 

"I'm not sure", he said, "the things I always do, I guess. Visit Sadie. See how my old home is holding up. Talk to Steven." 

The breeze hardened, and a gust of wind blew a small leaf in to the room from the balcony. He heard Fluorite stretch on top of the hotel, and the Rutile twins talk loudly below, walking to and fro, completely relaxed.

"Sir?" 

Rhodonite dropped the book and came closer to him, putting a protective arm around him. 

"Are you sure you're alright?"

"Yeah, what did I say?" He combed through his statement and found the error. "Oh man. Yeah, I guess I'm just a little tired from yesterday."

"Would she maybe take comfort in talking to another Pearl? I’m not sure it’s a good idea for you to go there, again, if you plan to. You were already tired yesterday, but now, you’re like an entirely different person. Maybe I should help.”

"I don't think you can do much about that, Rhod. Pearl has always been a special case, as far as I've been told. And thanks for worrying, but I’ll be fine. I’m the Captain, after all.”

If only he could ask Steven what to do with her. But now he was the only human left who'd known him when times were rough, or at least the only one present. And he wasn’t even human, not really, not anymore. There was nobody else to take his place in their little family though, so he had to make do for the week he was there. The way Pearl had looked at him, pleading, almost, then apologetic, was seared into his mind like any great sight he’d ever seen.

"Are you really going to talk to her again?", Rhodonite asked. "You could use a break from all of this too, you know. Not that you're getting one with how you worry so much, anyway, but I'm not sure she's making it any better."

"That's not the point", he said, "I just want to do what Steven would want me to."

"You're Captain Lars", she said, "you never do what other people tell you to do."

"This is not about him telling me to do something", he said, "more like a favour to a friend."

"That's what I thought, but still. Don't overdo it, alright? We need you too. Gems out there need you.”

"How will I know when to stop, Rhod? When is doing it overdoing it?"

"Beats me."

“I just feel like everything is falling apart so fast now, when Sadie… when Sadie died, there was still Steven, and we could talk about human stuff, and now… What now?”

“Now, now.”

Rhodonite pulled him into a hug, all four of her arms wrapped around him. “Time”, she said, “that’s what you need, and something to take your mind off things.” 

She pet his back. “You should come over for game night, I think Padparadscha wants to go gambling until morning.” 

That's why they'd needed Steven. He had always been there to remind them how important feeling good was after working hard. There'd be no untainted good feelings for a long, long time now. He had shown the Off-Colours how to play cards, chess, all the good stuff – the long journeys through space had become much more lively as a result, though nobody ever managed to last in Chess against Fluorite. First, she had the most people thinking for her. Second, she took her time thinking, all right.

He laughed, pulling himself free of her hug. “We never should’ve shown Pad how to do it.”

“I told you it would backfire.”

“That’s why you’re… Nevermind.”

"Lars? You can... you can tell me."

He remembered the time he'd just needed someone to be there, far away from any death or humanity - Sadie had been long dead, Steven still alive, but at some point while they were out on a mission, something had pulled the trigger on too many feelings at once. A stone that looked like someone. A cloud. Anything. 

And Rhod had been there. She'd told the others to go ahead, to scout the area, had told an Amethyst they were bringing to the other crew to stand guard while she just lay down with Lars on the floor and pushed his head into her hair, hair that smelled lightly of sulfur but mostly like warmth, and had remained with him for a good while before he got up, dusted himself off and left without another word.

Still.

"No, Rhod", he said, "not yet."


	6. #6

Sadie's grave looked almost the same as it had last time, though a single new vine had grown around its length, wrapping around it. Whenever Lars came back, took care of her grave as well as he could. Once, he'd even seen an old man with nothing else to do walk around the cemetery, cleaning all the graves nobody had touched in years.

She'd been dead for over a hundred years now, close to a hundred and thirty, but every time he stepped onto the grounds of the cemetery, with small stones littering the path and a large gate in the back leading away to the chapel, the memories came flooding back. He'd thought that being immortal would mean these memories would not stack up, that a bunch of them would ultimately fade out and disappear, but that wasn't true.

They were hard to reach most times, yes, but when they were triggered, they were just as strong as any memory he'd had when he had only spent thirty or forty years "alive". Only a few newer ones managed to take places next to them though, Steven's funeral now among them. However, when Lars gave himself an ounce of sleep to get out of his thoughts, the first ones he woke with were always centered around Sadie, Buck, that old Beach City. Like he could end up in the Donut shop next to her again, the two of them performing that old dance of approach and distance. He remembered the first kiss, the first actual one, no lies, no islands. The cemetery made him remember every moment. The way she'd held his pink hand in hers, slowly circling its back with her thumb. Watching her concerts with the Off-Colours, who had cheered even though they didn't understand her references to 90s Horror, all of it.  The times they were together, truly together, in a way he couldn’t imagine being with anyone else, no matter how large or miraculous the universe would reveal itself to be again and again.

The worst thing about missing a person, Lars thought, was the physical part. He could imagine Sadie talk to him and almost hear her voice. He could see her before his inner eye, young, old, whatever. His dreams, if he had one at all, could give him back these parts of her, the ones his mind could conjure up well enough to fool him in a tired state. But he could never even remotely approach the form of her body with anything he tried to conjure up. Only a faint memory of his hand between her stomach and a bed remained, her skin soft and pale, her eyes glancing up at him.

"I really like you", she'd said. "I really, really like you, Lars." A kiss. A close hug. Her asking him to pull her closer, closer, until he could feel all of her against him, so soft and, even though she was so much smaller than him, infinitely huge, the largest, most complete thing he'd ever held.

He remembered her stomach moving against him with every word, her eyes full of him and his of her, and never wanting to move, just to remain in this warmth that seemed to last forever in a second. The smell of her hair, the bump of her nose when he moved his face against hers, the small lines around her hips where a jeans had been just a tad too tight, so human and intimate.

He must've spent a good hour just walking through the cemetery, slowly approaching her grave with its small, faded picture of a singing Sadie, her Suspects behind her. She was giving it her all on the picture, too. He'd taken it at one of their first shows after they'd made it big, standing in the first row, her looking to him like the most beautiful being in all the galaxies he'd ever visit.

“This one’s for you”, she’d said, and played Ghost Love, a song he still listened to from time to time when he was feeling particularly like a wet blanket.

He wondered briefly if Steven had found a way to reach her now.

Maybe the afterlife for all people who knew him would be like the dreams that connected him to other people, strange and wholesome all at once. He hoped that Steven wasn't alone, wherever he was, and who better to join him than all those people he'd loved so much? Lars sat down.

The image was too strong.

He saw them all, their faces faded but strong, suddenly black and white what had once been colour. Buck. Sour Cream. Kiki and Jenny. Himself and Sadie. None of these people were alive anymore, strictly speaking, and now Steven had gone to follow them while he was left to care for their graves and their memories. The Gems didn’t remember Buck, not the way he did, in fact, nobody alive did, but he had known him, known him for years and decades, and now he was gone, like part of a cliff washed away by the sea, forever.

He wanted to cry, to feel it more deeply, but he had cried for these people so much that no tears came anymore. Was Steven the last one? Would he even be sad when those humans he had no real connection to, the ones who lived in Beach City now, far removed from his time, would end? He would worry about it then, he thought, one worry at a time. Still, he couldn't help wondering.

Why? Why was he the only one left? He knew why in the literal sense, but still... It never quite felt right. All the people around him got to leave, but there he was, wandering the streets of a Beach City that looked nothing like the one he’d grown up in.

His house was next. It had now been turned into a far larger mansion that the one his parents had lived in, not a single wall visible of the old house. The Deweys lived in it now, at least when Antoine was actually in town - usually, April and her mother, May, stayed there by themselves, while the elder son, Augustus, came back for the summers. Steven had told Lars that April reminded him of Sadie somewhat, and though the Dewey girl looked like a female version of Buck, she did talk and sound just like the Miller girl. It's why he knocked on the door. He heard footsteps approach and a small figure stretch to look through the peephole.

"Lars!" April opened the door wide to let him in. “I knew you’d come. Can you smell the muffins? Your old recipe.”

They were. And again, the smell called memories to mind, too many to count. The fact his recipe was still used filled him with a bit of pride, but it vanished when he realised that he’d baked these, blueberry with small, almost unnoticeable pieces of apple, for Sadie on her 40th birthday.

"I'm not coming in today", he said, "maybe some other time. Just wanted to drop by."

"But you have to come in, Lars. I just made some muffins and wanted to bring them over to the gems. I know you’re a master baker, my grandma told me, why don’t you help me test?”

She would’ve fit in with the Cool Kids so well, Lars thought, laughing with Buck, eating Pizza in the back of Sour Cream’s garage still filled with Vidalia’s pictures. Now they were all gone, and she would never get to meet them. He shook his head.

"I don't really eat much anymore. The Gems don’t, either."

"They do sometimes."

"Even Pearl?"

"No, never."

"Well, I'll help you bring them over, I guess that’s something I could do."

"Sit down. They still need to cool off a little. Come on. Inside. Please."

"Yeah, okay. If you insist. But don't say I forced my way in or something."

It surprised him how much the rooms looked like his old place - the kitchen, the stairs leading up. When Antoine had the old house reinforced, Lars had thought it would disappear beneath one of those McMansions some Europeans loved to buy in America, but no. It was still the same house, just shinier and larger, with his room in the attic taken apart entirely to make room for an entire second floor. He sat down in the kitchen.

Ghosts of his parents moved through the rooms, called him Laramie, asked him why his grades were slacking, tip-toed around the many different questions and problems he'd posed at a time when he was more confused and more curious. The first time he'd come back to find the house with new occupants, all of which were always very kind if he asked them to give him a tour or let him have a look around, he swore he could feel his mother embrace him from behind a last time. But it was just her smell that found him - the new mother living there had used the same perfume his had.

"Do you need anything?", April asked. She sat down across from him and stared at him intently. "How long has it been since you were here last?"

Lars counted. Time felt weird. 

"Twelve."

"I was five then."

"What? That's crazy. That’s insane. You’re so much older now."

"Hey, I'll take that as an insult."

"Nah, you’ve held up quite well. You’ve still got those cheeks.”

“Hey, now you’re just being a meanie! Steven pinched those cheeks all the time, that’s why they’re so big.”

“Maybe they’re just like me, but you know, only your cheeks, because he, like, killed them by pinching too hard.”

“Oh, he could.”

“I know. He once played with my hair for four hours. Did Steven turn you Pink and you're just painting over it?"

"No, he didn't. He offered."

Wait.

"What?"

"He was feeling awful these last days. I think… I don’t know why he offered. It was… He was very different from the way he used to be. Sad.”

Lars let her reminisce in peace. She looked deep in thought, as if  the memories had taken hold of her and wouldn't let go.

"I'd never seen him like that", she said, "he was an old man, way older than any person I've ever met, and he could barely move."

"His gem regulates his age", Lars said, "unconsciously. He never learned how to control it."

"What's the oldest you've seen him?"

"About a year ago, when he called me the last time.”

Had Lars known? Had he realized that this would be the last call? Steven could barely lift his arms, but maybe it would’ve been different had he said something, had he done something, or called Pearl, or asked Padparadscha what to do, or… But he couldn’t see him like this. He looked so much like Sadie on her dying bed it hurt. Lars was still a coward, after all, wasn’t he?

“He was so old, his voice was all busted up”, he said, shaking the call out of his head. “It's weird to talk about him like he's gone, right? I mean, he is. But still."

"I didn't really know him. Like, he talked to me. But I didn’t _know_ know him, you know? Pearl didn't talk to me a lot. Amethyst did, but eh... You know. She was shook by all of this too, she couldn't stay around him long when he was…”

"Me neither. Or else I would've stayed until the end."

"Nobody blames you, Lars."

"Yeah. Where's June, anyway?"

"Mom? Augustus caused some trouble, she drove over."

"How old is he now?"

"He's eleven."

"Your mom was barely pregnant with him ten years ago… Oh man. I knew... I knew your... My God.”

"What? Lars?"

She came closer to him. All the time, people were approaching him and pushing hands on shoulders. What was up with that, anyway? He was a Captain, for crying out loud. April was literally almost two hundred years younger than he was. 

He shook her off. 

"It's fine. Don't worry."

"If... if you say so, okay. But, you know, if anything's up, my Mom's a psychiatrist. She might help. I might, too. You know."

"Thank you, but..."

There's no psychiatrist in the world who could deal with me without hearing two hundred years of baggage, and I can't stay on earth. It gets worse every day while I'm here. Lars shook his head and continued where he left off.

"I knew your great, great grandfather. Or something, I'm not sure how many greats. You know, the mayor and his son?"

"That's my mother's line, right? The Deweys."

"Yeah. It's... I can't believe it. I'm over two hundred years old, April."

"That's insane."

"It's so crazy, I never thought - when Steven first turned me Pink... I didn't know this is what would happen. I didn't know I'd see Buck's great great whatever. I mean, how is this even possible? This is... I can't even tell you how many times I..."

"Hey, are you okay?"

He was breathing very quickly, running his hands through and into his hair, grabbing at his eyes and cheeks. Her question took him out of his thoughts, but they would only return stronger.

"Yeah. I think we should go”, he said, already standing up. Pearl was in the Beach House. Maybe there was at least something he could do for her now.

"Lars", April said, "take this tray. I'll take the other one. And..."

She looked him deep in the eye, a sort of coolness she must have inherited from Buck rising into hers. 

"Don't beat yourself up too much. You're a cool cat, you know?"

"Sometimes."

"Which is weird. You're cool all the time."


	7. #7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: The next chapter will be published next week, with a break following after that. I hope you're all enjoying the ride so far, but any form of criticism is very welcome. Also, I love reading your comments.

They left when dusk started to cover the skies. A couple of people nodded at April in passing, and looked at Lars as if they knew exactly why he was there. He’d rather they didn’t. Rut and Tile ran into them, and they exchanged a couple of words about how their day had been, fully of long walks and a visit to a museum of beach fossils that had opened a couple of miles away. They asked whether Lars would be coming over to the hotel for game night, they wanted to play some of the Earth's tabletop games, but he said that he'd maybe join them a bit later. They nodded, not inquiring further. Being a captain certainly had its perks.

Since the Off-Colours didn't need to sleep, they would probably keep playing all night. Rhodonite really didn't like losing if she could avoid it – the aristocratic part of her Pearl was still very much intact within her. Considering Padparadscha loved to gamble on occasion, take great risks not caring for the consequences, the night would be long and eventful, maybe filled with a laugh or two, even in these times.

But Lars had other business to attend to. Emerald had written him again while he'd been at April's house, and he wasn't sure whether he even wanted to read the message. Were they that close? Their time on the desolate planet had been barely two years ago, maybe three at most, nothing in gem terms. He hadn't really seen Emerald in the flesh since then. They were still chasing after each other, sometimes across the entire Galaxy in weeks, the Off-Colours building their own little club of others like them while Emerald rallied her own people.

Sometimes they lost, sometimes they won. Few had died over these two hundred years, mostly punished by their Homeworld superiors, though those few were already more than was acceptable. The worst had been the time when Homeworld was really hunting after each of their respective guts and had sent Aquamarine to take charge. But that was an entirely different story, full of scary, exciting memories he didn't want to revisit, not now, maybe not ever.

Pearl wasn't in the Beach House, but Garnet and Amethyst were quietly talking to each other in the kitchen. A single warm light was illuminating the room right above the kitchen table, casting dark, long shadows everywhere. Amethyst jumped up to meet them. "Lars and April, if it isn't... you're not a duo now, are you?"

"Not that I know of", Lars said.

April just laughed and handed Amethyst the tray of Muffins. The purple gem smiled for a minute, but her features took a turn for the darker.

"What's up?", April asked.

"He loved these", Amethyst said, and the room was eerily quiet for a moment before she ate the first. "These are awesome, Apes!"

"Well, I did try my best."

"That's what counts", Garnet said. "Though it's preferable if what you put your effort into turns out well."

"I guess that's true", April said, smiling. “How are you two holding up?”

Garnet looked down at her hands. They were clenching and unclenching, Ruby and Sapphire disappearing behind tense fingers.

“It doesn’t feel like it actually happened”, she said, “though I saw it, and made sure. I… I don’t know how much longer I can keep it together like this.”

“You don’t have to”, Amethyst said. She tried to hug Garnet, but the fusion didn’t hug her back for a moment, as if she didn’t even register her there.

“Amethyst”, she said, slowly ruffling the purple one’s hair, “somebody has to. And if it's me, that's fine. It's the least I can do."

April stretched out her hand, but hesitated until the hug was broken. She swallowed. This was a bit out of her league, wasn’t it?

“Well”, she said, stretching the word so she had time to think, “I’ll leave you to it. If there’s anything I can do, just come over. That goes for you too, Lars.”

She winked at him. He merely blinked at her for a moment before cautiously returning a smile he didn’t quite feel. 

"Thank you", Garnet said, "but we have our own methods of coping with this, we will be fine. Eventually."

April thought whether she should say something or not, tilting back and forth on her feet. She sighed.

"I miss him too", April said, "though I only knew him for what, seventeen years? He… Steven was… Ah, dang it. I can’t do these things. Tell Pearl she did a good job, will you? I probably can't understand how much you guys loved him, but she helped me.”

"No", Garnet said with a slightly shaking voice, hinting at the feelings burning underneath, "you can't. Thank you for the food."

April nodded, hugged each of them goodbye and left. Lars was left with Garnet, Amethyst and a nagging uncertainty of whether he should stay or go. Garnet took a stool and put it next to hers. That was as clear a sign as he was likely going to get.

"Where's Pearl?", he said, sitting down. Garnet pointed towards the inner sanctum of the temple, where the gems had their rooms just behind the warp pad. 

"She warped away after you left and hasn't come back so far. She really just needs to be alone right now, Lars. She will come back once it's her time to be here."

"I understand", he said, "I hope I helped a little."

"You did your best, man", Amethyst said, "but she's always so hysterical, I'm not sure how she even survived this long."

"Wha- what do you mean?"

"Ugh, I don't even - we're all suffering here, right? It was the same after Rose… after Rose became Steven. All of us couldn’t handle it. And I get it, Pearl knew her the longest, but she always makes it look like she's the victim. Like she's the one who’s lost the most. And we all knew Steven for – for his entire life. All the time. I feel like - I'm sad too, you know? I can't believe it either. It's... it's... He – I can’t even say was yet – my best friend, and now she’s acting like this, and Garnet’s sad too, so I don’t want to bother her, and I could really, really use some Pearl in my life right now, you know? I tried to talk to her today, I really did, but she just - she just left without a word, and I felt so...”

Amethyst was tearing up right before his eyes.

"I just, I keep remembering - how close Steven and I... And now that he's gone, what does that make me? What do I do now? If even Pearl won't talk to me?"

He pulled her into a tight hug. She almost crushed him with her hands on his back, but he remained steadfast. Garnet tapped him on the shoulder. He looked up at her, blowing strands of Amethyst’s hair out of his face. She gave him a thumbs up. A tear started running down his cheeks, too, but he just nodded at her and kept hugging Amethyst until she calmed down.

"Now, now", he said, but Amethyst was already taking her distance.

"Thanks for that, but don't get any funny ideas."

"I- how- I would never, you know that, you know what? I..."

"Yeah, save it for Pearl."

"Amethyst", Garnet said. “Lars is just trying to be there for her while she won’t open up to us yet. I know what you're feeling right now, but you must understand. She'll be back. She's stronger than we think she is.”

"But why can't she be there for us? The way we - the way we want to be for her? Who do _I_ get? Pearl had _Rose_ all the time, and now she gets Mr. Space Pirate over here, and who do I have? I thought I'd have Pearl, but she's... She never talked to us about Rose. And now this. I thought this would be different. I thought we might help each other, like old times. Like really, really old times.”

"Pearl is too broken herself to help anyone right now", Garnet said, "and Lars is just trying his hardest to help while he's here. Amethyst, we all need to do our best right now. Steven would want us to. Isn’t that right, Lars?”

"It's not easy, to be honest. But I really get where Pearl's coming from and... I guess it's not that hard for me. I'm used to losing people by now. Now guys, sorry, I mean - don't get me wrong, losing Steven still sucks, big time. What am I saying, it's awful... but..."

"I understand", Garnet said. "We are grateful for your presence. And Amethyst." She turned towards the smaller gem. "You have me. Let's go together, you can stay in my room if you'd like to sleep."

"Will you sleep?"

"I can't, not right now."

"Then I won't either. But... let’s go. I need to get out of here. And Lars? Don't think you can just solve this for her. Trust me. I've tried.”

"Steven could", Lars said. 

Amethyst nodded. She didn't need to say any more. Garnet did it for her.

"Almost", she said, and Lars could feel her looking at him through the visor, her expression unreadable.

The gems moved to the inner door, and two gems on the walls shone a bright light toward the kitchen. Amethyst and Garnet entered together and disappeared. Lars was alone.

He checked the message from Emerald. "When can you talk? It’s urgent. Please, it’s for your own good, really, open this line. I’ll get shattered if they find this, so I’ll get a new Com after I record this message. If you want to call me back, do it now, or you’ll just have to wait for me. Like you always do. You miserable space pirate, you. Call me, dang it.”

So it hadn't been a one-time thing, then. A lot of things had happened on that planet three years ago, him trying desperately to open a portal any way he could, the same way he had done against Aquamarine, but to no avail, waiting for any sign of the Off-Colours in the sky. Could they get the ship repaired in time? Would Emerald’s crew find them first? She’d kidnapped him, brought him on her ship, and he had thrown the two of them out of the exhaust when they were barely in a planet’s vicinity – when her crew had noticed, it had already been too late to turn off the nova thrusters, so it could take weeks for them to find fuel, come back, get her home. Same went for the Off-Colours.

They had waited while wild animals and the tribe slowly approached both him and Emerald. At first, they had been alone, but in the end, they had joined forces – out of pure loneliness than anything else.

Things had been said. Offers had been made, promises, too. Stories told, secrets shared. Truth be told, he had been certain that that would be it, that his existence would in some form be devoured, had already made peace with the fact. Plenty of peace. There had been a long night by a fire, one of many, when she had told him about the first shattering she had witnessed, the nightmares that had plagued her, how it had then, soon, become almost second nature to see gems destroyed.

Oh, he remembered. He had been glad that during all his years as a space pirate, there had never been anything he'd truly beat himself up for, no shattered gems, no death among the Off-Colours. But after talking to Emerald, slowly realizing that she knew all of her crew, even the crew they had poofed and left on planets where they weren't sure they would ever be found... even he gets his share, Lars thought, nobody's innocent all the way. He still didn’t know what had happened to Aquamarine. He hadn’t always made the right choices. Not him, especially not Emerald. But you don't get to chase after somebody for two hundred years without getting somewhat attached, no matter how awful they were. He had just turned the menu to where he could open a com line when he heard the warp pad activate, and long, thin legs approach. They walked past his place on the stool, but Pearl merely stood still for a moment, thinking, and then sat down on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And again, I'm here, though I have no idea what I'm doing, why I'm doing it and how any of what I could possibly do is helping her. But I have to. If I don't try, what am I even doing anymore?


	8. #8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note: Thank you very much for reading another one of these chapters - the next one is a bit of a way off, since there's plenty to do on the other side of the monitor for yours truly. However, I'd still love to read your comments in the meantime. They always make any difficulty I have writing these worth it, tenfold.

Pearl didn't say anything. She looked at the ceiling, slowly stretching her arms, much like she used to do when she had had her period of utter silence with Garnet. Lars turned toward her. His cape fluttered in the wind, and he looked up to see where it was coming from. The wall she'd broken hadn't been fixed yet. Maybe it never would be. Steven's bed was up there, perfectly made and covered by a star-spangled blanket he hadn't seen for years and years.

For a while, Lars thought he could take the silence, or at least the relative quiet of the waves breaking against the shore. But no. The longer he sat there, Pearl idly sitting, waiting, the more he wanted to say something, anything, to break it. It reminded him of the times when he had been silent with Steven in the ship, just after he had found out everything about Pink Diamond and the other Diamonds had left. Quiet was important, Steven had said, but not like this.

"Pearl", he said, "are you - where were you?"

He didn't mean to pry, didn't mean to sound like he really had any right to know, with how little they knew each other.

"Well, you know, here and there. Went to see Bismuth. She’s… I told her to spend time with the others, but I don’t think she will. I’ll drop a hint to Peridot she might need someone."

Lars had never spent much time with Bismuth, instead talking more to Peridot and Lapis. But if the statue was any indication, Bismuth had cared, in her own way, and now that there was nobody left to care about, they could only take care of each other.

“And how are you doing? You alright?”, he asked. 

“Me?”, she said. She didn’t even turn to look at him, instead staring at a fixed point on the ceiling, not saying a single word more. Lars could feel his hand clench into a fist.

Did she want to talk or not? She had come back. She hadn't told him to leave, either. What was going on? If she expected him to ask all the questions and drag her out of her state, like Steven could have, must have, Lars… Lars wasn’t able to do that, he thought. He didn’t have the spirit. He didn't even have any of the experience - all the time when Steven had helped him, he had never paid attention to what exactly he was doing.

"Would you come closer?", Pearl asked. This time, she looked at Lars, if only for a moment, and then turned her glane away, to the warp pad.

Lars didn't move. How close? Why? Did she need someone to be physically close? He didn't know if he had it in him. The last person he'd comforted like that, with long hugs and held hands, had been Rhodonite, and the other... Steven.

But Pearl probably wasn't going to ask again. He stood up, got some dust off his shoulder and removed the cape. He draped it over his arm and approached her, but didn’t come too close – he sat down at the other end of the couch, crossed his legs and waited. The ocean’s voice was coming in, like the ebb and flow of a dire, long conversation.

"You loved the Miller girl, didn't you?"

Oh, so this was where this was going. Memories faded in and out of Lars' consciousness at the mere mention of her name. Pancakes, made together in the morning. Concerts, him backstage, her running up to peck a quick kiss on his cheek after a costume change. Holding her when her father had died. And the one central memory, after a doctor's visit when she had already been, what, fifty years old, looked so much like a slightly smaller version of her mother but still radiant, still beautiful, and she had asked him...

"Yeah." He'd have turned red, stammered, maybe even fled two hundred years ago. But the certainty of his feelings for her were one of the few constants in the universe, so there was no need to beat around the bush. "I did."

"How did you… When she died. How did you feel?”

Pearl looked at him quickly, as if she were ashamed for asking the question. She didn't have to be, Lars thought. He imagined she had only ever spoken to two other human people about loss like this, and they must have been either Steven or his father. Greg had died a good century ago. But Lars was still there.

He thought for a second. The feelings weren’t buried too deep, they felt too fresh for that, but he had never put them into words for anyone before. Well, he'd talked about it, of course, with Steven or Lapis or Rhodonite, but this... this was an invitation. To be honest. Maybe, if he could be, that meant he was dealing with it well, maybe that was what it takes.

“I felt... I felt like crap. Hopeless. Like there was nothing left anymore that made, like, any sense. Honestly, I just wanted to... I don't know. End."

"Hopeless. That's a good word. Well, not good. Powerful. Fitting.

She combed through the rest of what he said, and noticed the word at the end, like a blemish in an otherwise perfectly dark picture.

"What do you mean, you... you wanted to end, Lars?"

Lars shrugged. 

"I was just so scared, of everything. I didn't know what to do. Scared of death, I guess." 

Or the opposite.

Pearl moved a bit closer to him, suddenly serious and very concerned. 

"What could you possibly be afraid of? Of course, I would understand if you were scared of a mission, but now? Death… at least the kind of death most humans face has no power over you, not like it had over… I’m sorry, please, but what was her name?”

He felt all the times he’d whispered, yelled and just say her name while she had been alive burn across his tongue. “Sadie.”

“Ah, yes, of course! And you – you aren’t like her anymore. And you aren’t like Steven, either. You have an eternity to define your legacy."

Lars felt something pull at his heart. She didn’t get it at all, did she? She was just talking about these things as if his life was fine and dandy and perfect. As if there was no reason not to rejoice in his immortality. He remembered what Blue Diamond had said just a day earlier, about opportunities and them being given to him. What? What could he really do that mattered, to anyone, now that Steven was gone?

"Isn't a legacy something you leave behind?"

"Yes."

"How can I have a legacy if I never leave? I'll just - I'll just keep messing up and destroy everything, at some point."

He hadn't wanted to say that, but there it was now, too late to take it back. 

"Your crew certainly believes in you", Pearl said. "Rose was also worried about betraying the trust of others. That's why she kept being Pink from everyone all this time, and caused some of us... a lot of pain."

"I know", Lars said, "but let's not talk about that now. I really don't know what I'm doing here, Pearl, but if it helps you, that's good."

Pearl nodded. Thank you.

"You have extraordinarily deep thoughts for a human. I'm sorry, that's not what I meant, it's just... I'm not sure people without your lifespan could ever think about these things so clearly. Unless they are philosophers. I've read your people, you know, I've read Kant and Camus. Imagine what they could have done if they'd never died."

"I'm not sure they would have done anything at all, to be honest. Maybe they would've just goofed off all the time."

"What do you mean?"

"Humans... we don't work like that. There's just... ah, how do I say this? This is why, I think, Steven did it, it just... it just doesn't feel like there's anything else to do at some point, like it's all been done before. I feel very, very old right now, even though I'm so much younger than you."

"That's because people you know and knew die faster than gems."

Lars looked at the floor. Yes, to put it simply, that was certainly the case. But then again, that made it sound like it was their fault they were dying, while it really seemed to be his he wasn't.

"Yeah, I guess you're right."

Pearl sounded more calm now, less inquisitive in a general sense and more like an actual person talking to another. Was she trying to understand Steven better, before? Why couldn't she have just asked? Her voice was much more pleasant now, almost motherly. 

"It will pass. You will adapt, especially if you spend more time with us. Perhaps. Maybe not, after... after Steven."

She grew quiet for a moment, and Lars looked up to see tears glistening in her eyes. She wiped them away with her hand and looked at them, sparkling white in the moonlight. She had seen the sight many times before, over thousands of lonely years running after Rose, but it had never felt this... final.

"I'm not even sure what I'm supposed to do now. All this time. All this time ahead, and nothing, nothing there, nothing at all, nothing, nothing."

"Hey, Pearl."

"What?"

"I really don't understand. On one hand. Steven - he told me you loved his mother for a long time."

The first time Lars had asked about Pearl, it was a basic "What's her deal, anyway?", and Steven had thought for a long, long time before answering in a couple of short sentences. For a long time, she had felt weird around Greg, but now, it was better. Why had she felt that way? Because she loved Steven's mother, with all her heart, but never told her just how much she needed her. And if she had, maybe, Steven wouldn't have been born.

"Forever", Pearl said, "even after... even after Steven was born." She twiddled her thumbs without looking at Lars, instead pointing her eyes toward Rose's picture hanging just above the door frame. "What we had was special, even among humans, especially so among Gems. She loved me. I loved her, too. Oh, how I just wanted to hold her one more time. For a long time after Steven had been born, I didn't understand how she could just - leave me. And now he's gone, too."

"But he was here", Lars said. It had been just what Steven had said after Sadie's death.

"I'm not sure that's a helpful thought", Pearl said. "No matter how long he was here, now there's just... nothing. Only memories. I can't touch memories. I can't have memories tell me I'm good."

Well, it hadn't helped Lars, either. But what could he do if it wasn't possible to get Pearl to accept this, at the moment? There was only one way to go, then, Lars realised. They had to go deeper.

Pearl had moved even closer to him now, their legs brushing against the other, neither of them saying anything. He wondered if he should put his arm around her shoulder and pull her close, but it felt wrong. They had never even been this physically close before, and this was slowly growing to be their second longest conversation, because the only other real one they'd ever had had been the day before.

"What did you miss about her?", he asked. She took her eyes off the picture and looked at Lars directly. He noticed how big her eyes were, how much grief could fit inside, lifetimes upon lifetimes.

"Everything. The way she'd talk to me. Her - her body, I..." She turned a pale shade of blue. "I really wanted to just touch her one more time."

"I felt the same way about Sadie", Lars said, "not being able to hug her or kiss her ever again was the worst."

Pearl nodded. "I feel like all of that was so long ago", she continued, "and in human years, it was. But to me, it feels like it was just yesterday she walked around the temple, humming a song. And Steven... I..."

"It's okay, you don't have to say anything."

She shook her head. "I'm glad you're here", she said, "you're someone who knew him in a way we didn't. He never had to be the leader around you, or even Rose's son."

"He felt pretty alright around you guys, Pearl, I don't think he..."

"No. I'm sure there were things he couldn't talk about with me. I know that now. When he... when he was dying..." 

The word shook Pearl to the core, and Lars could see the hair on the back of her head stand. 

"I kept asking him, why, why are you doing this, why are you leaving us, leaving _me,_ don't you know how much I need you... You know what he said?"

"That you don't need him."

"Exactly. And he can tell me all he wants about being my own gem, but he's wrong. He... he was wrong. I'm nobody. And that makes it even worse, do you understand? He spent all his life trying to make me feel like I could exist without relying on anyone, and now that he's gone, all I want is him to be here again, even to be sick again, just so I could take care of him."

Pearl cupped her face with her hands, disappearing behind her long, white fingers. 

"If only Rose were here, she'd tell me what to do..."

For a moment, they both simply sat there, Lars's mind racing, wondering what to do or say.

"Why don't you want to move on from Rose?", he asked. It felt like the right thing at the time. Shake her up a bit. But immediately after he said it, he realised what he really meant.

Why do you keep going back to places you know will cause you nothing but pain?

Sadie's grave was just a stone in a shape with a picture on it. His memories were just that, images in his mind, with no meaning but that he assigned. Pearl had to see. She was so much older than he was. If she couldn't deal, what would that make him?

"I mean", he said when Pearl looked at him with her eyes wide, "you're - you're grieving two people. Still. Don't you think one is enough, for now?"

"You're speaking about something you don't understand at all, Lars. I do want to move on, I've wanted to for a long time, it's just that..."

"No, no you don't.”

He took a deep breath. Whatever he had been expecting, it wasn’t this. This was just as much about him as it was about her now, and he wondered if Steven ever vented his own frustrations when somebody came to him for help. But he wasn’t Steven, and trying to be would only drive him mad.

“I thought about it for a long time, you know”, he continued, “moving on, that is. From stuff. I'm not just off on my little space adventures up there. Serious stuff happens sometimes. Do you think I don't know how good it feels to think of them? Isn’t it like… like… You need something to remember them by.”

“And the pain is all there is”, Pearl said, finishing his sentence in more eloquent way than he could have thought up. Yes, that was it. He looked at her. In her eyes, he saw a recognition he had never noticed there before. Her eyes were dark, no moonlight hitting them on the couch, only the faint golden light of the Lamp by the kitchen sparkling within. He wondered what he must have looked like and self-consciously leaned back a bit before talking again.

“Yeah, exactly. I don’t know what I’d do if I… I always think I'll just come back to Earth... and she'll be here, waiting for me... with a guitar, or a walking cane, or whatever, I don't care."

“But that’s impossible.”

“I know, but it makes me feel better.”

“But why – why would you delude yourself? I mean, no, I read a lot of things about humans and I _do_ understand, but why are you setting yourself up for disappointment every time you come back?”

She looked at him with earnest curiosity, maybe even some pity, and it was the last thing he wanted to see. His face turned sour. Pearl was threading on mighty thin ice.

"What do  _you_ know?", he said, louder than he had meant to.

Lars stood up and started pacing. There was so much inside, so many useless things he didn’t know what to do with.

Worst was, it was fading.

"The fact you still manage to feel anything at all is a miracle”, he said. “I hope all of this just goes away.”

Pearl stood up as well, pressing her fingers together into a sort of cage, her arms anxious and tense. What had she done wrong? Should she have been kinder to Lars? In human years, Sadie’s death was an eternity ago. How could she have known?

"What... what is  _that_ supposed to mean now? I'm... I'm holding it in as good as I can, but you  _saw_ me yesterday, you of all people should know..."

"I don't know how much longer I can do this."

He grit his teeth. There. There. There. 

“You mean, help me? Talk to me? You don’t have to, I mean, you can – you can leave, I’m not keeping you, I just thought, maybe…”

“No. No. All of this. All of it.”

She approached him slowly, but didn’t touch him.

"Lars, do you want to die?”

He took too long to answer. He knew it.

"No. I don't think so. I'm not sure. It would just be good to know I... can, at some point."

"I've wanted to die many times. For Rose. But also... I..."

She got up as well, came towards him, extended a hand but didn't dare touch him.

"I'm sorry", she said, "I underestimate humans, as always."

“I’m not really human, Pearl. I'm just... some guy with a pink body. I don’t feel it anymore.”

“You are who you are, that’s what counts. It’s what Steven would say.”

“Greg, too. Plenty of people, really. Would Rose?”

"Yes, her, too. Sometimes, I dream about her, and… I think I can still keep her. But then there'd be no Steven, or there... wouldn't have been."

Again, the waves were the only sound in the building. Lars heard steps outside, small growls. Lion? Yes, he felt the feline's presence through the walls. Where had he been? Anywhere but here. Who could blame him?

"Can we just... sit down together again?", Lars asked after a while. 

"Yes, let's." Pearl went first, sitting down in the middle of the couch so there would be no point trying to avoid sitting down next to her. Lars went next. He draped his cape over his thighs. Pearl lay down on them, her hard, almost marble-like body feeling strangely gentle on his knees.

"Is this okay?", she asked. "I did this to Steven once without asking, and I felt so horrid about it afterwards."

"Yeah, this is fine. Just don't, like, stab me with our nose on accident."

"Oh, ha-ha."

"I'm serious."

"Of course you are."

He touched her hair, the wiry, thin fibers that passed for it, and they softened immediately at his touch. Was she changing it herself? He felt the edge of her hairline, the short, stubbly hair growing there, unkempt now after she'd ripped out parts of it yesterday. It didn't take long before she started crying softly, but this time, he didn't even try saying anything, or doing anything much. Instead, he just hugged her a little closer, her thin, suddenly fragile body, and ran his fingers through her hair until she stopped. He looked at the painting of Rose Quartz still hanging above the door, and wondered if he was like her now, if she'd ever done this for Pearl. And the answer would be that yes, of course she had, and now she wasn't here anymore, just like Sadie and Buck and all the others, and they had to fill these voids as well as they could.

MInutes or hours passed, he wasn't sure. He felt himself saying something, somewhere between asleep and awake. 

"And you know how, at some point, it's just too much and you try to stop feeling it, but you wonder if... if you're..."

"If you're still you when you're not in pain."

"But we, I mean, we have to move on, don't we?"

"If there's anything Rose taught me, it's that you don't have to do anything."

He wanted to say more, but he wished so fervently, so desperately that Steven would just walk through the door and shake them awake, tell them that life was beautiful and worth living, but he wasn't there, and no matter how often he'd it before, Lars would have sacrificed his left foot to have him say it one more time.

Later in the night, he heard the door open and a mountain of pink fur entered the room. Pearl didn't stir, though he knew she could see him as well. He walked over to the two of them, and Lars saw the same thing in his eyes he always did - himself, just as an animal with many more years behind him. Lion curled up into a ball in front of Lars and Pearl, and they watched him gently snore himself into a dream. For a moment, it felt almost like things were back to normal. 

But Pearl, no matter how much she tried to distract herself, couldn't stop imagining Steven's dark hair emerging from Lion's main, with a small souvenir for her or the others brought from one of Captain Lars's missions, and when Lars noticed she was shaking, he pulled her that little bit closer. 


	9. #9

The night stretched on, seemingly infinite, with Lars’s hand on Pearl’s hair, her lying on his knees, giving and receiving comfort at the same time in that weird, reciprocal way that wasn’t really supposed to work. Pearl looked up at Lars and wondered why she’d never seen him as more than one of Steven’s mere human friends, someone she couldn’t even have too long of a conversation with without it growing over their heads. But looking ahead, his demeanour serious and tense, he seemed all the Captain Steven had hyped him up to be.

“Don’t you always have that Gem who’s chasing you?”, she asked. Her voice seemed muffled by the waves in the air, but she was just tired, and wouldn’t stop feeling tired for another few years.

“Yeah, Emerald”, Lars said, “but she’s actually… well, not alright or anything, but you get used to her.”

“What’s she like? Typical Homeworld? Nose up in the air? ‘Off-Colour Scum?’”

“That’s how it was for a good, like, century, yeah. But you’d be surprised.”

Pearl smirked. It didn’t seem possible, for Homeworld to change on their own. Even their truce with the Diamonds would have to be renegotiated, although Pearl couldn’t imagine what else they wanted to take. She was eternally grateful for these hours she could spend just grieving – it felt weird, but after Rose had given her form to Steven, there had never been a day when she hadn’t worried about him. Occasionally, she found herself wondering what to worry about, but whenever she turned her attention to herself, she realised that this was the Steven in her memories asking her to take care of herself, and it only made her feel worse.

“Emerald is… We spent some time together. Recently.”

“What’s recently to you?”

“Couple of years.”

“That’s barely the blink of an eye.”

“Do you have to rub it in?”

“Sorry not sorry. You have to know your place.”

Lars smiled. Pearl felt a brief sting in her heart – as soon as Steven had gone, there was somebody else worrying about her. Could she do nothing right? She’d fought in the Rebellion to be her own gem, and now here she was, hanging onto the first person who smelled like Steven, who had been touched by him in a way she herself had been, just in a different manner.

“I get it, I get it”, Lars said, a brief hint of irony in his voice, “I gotta look out for granny Pearl.”

“Excuse me?”

She sat up. Part of her wanted to talk about Steven again, to bask in the slowly fading glory light of his memory, but a different part, one that had grown during the day, wanted to talk about anything else for at least a second, a minute, an hour. Anything.

After he had breathed his last, after she’d spent a good hour hunched over him before being able to think yet alone talk, after she had told the others and watched their faces lose everything that made them whole, she hadn’t spent a single second not preparing for the funeral. It had been a good thing to keep her mind on, something all internal Pearls could agree to do – even the one still missing Rose.

“Lars”, she said, “thank you.”

Lars cocked his head to the side. “What did I do now?”

“For being here.”

“Oh.”

“I… I understand I can be lost in my own thoughts sometimes, and it can get intense around here, and even more so in there.”

She pointed at her gem and continued.

“And for you to stay here, even though you miss Steven as well, like all of us do… Thank you. I appreciate it.”

“Ah, it’s no big deal, Pearl. I’m sure Steven would have done the same thing.”

And there he was again. It had been a slowly growing realisation, something expected and yet, at the same time, utterly miraculous and human: Steven stayed, just like she had said during her speech in the vague, almost superstitious hope it would come true. He peeked his head into a conversation. His voice echoed in her mind when she said her thanks to Lars. And his pink touch was sitting in front of her, and had been for hours. Steven was all around her.

But she couldn’t touch him.

She couldn’t ruffle his hair.

She couldn’t ask him how he was doing.

She couldn’t hold on to his shivering form in the cold, she couldn’t be bad at video games next to him, she couldn’t talk to him the way they had started talking these last decades, when they hadn’t known they would be the last, she couldn’t even really hear his voice one more time because her projections only showed images. He was as gone as he could be now, and he would only be more gone in the future. His human body would…

She started shivering.

Lars touched her without wanting to, instinctively.

“Pearl, hey, what’s going on all of a sudden?”

He had seen these eyes. Rhodonite, when talking about Morganite. The Rutiles when talking about anything prior to finding the group. Emerald, even Emerald, that night when she remembered the shattered Ruby.

Pearl shook her head no.

“I need a moment. Please. I… I need to be here. Alone. I won’t do anything. It’s just that there are some things I need to think about, and if you were to see me… react…”

Lars got up slowly, keeping an eye on her form. Alright. Okay. He needed a break outside, anyway, some fresh air. But he’d stay around, close to the house.

He looked at Pearl over his shoulder, but she averted her eyes when they met his, fixing the ground in her gaze. She was still shivering, but it seemed to be getting better, if only slightly.

Outside, Lion had curled himself up against the porch, his tail hanging loosely down from its wooden floor, swaying in the breeze. How strange, Lars thought. While a storm was brewing inside, everything outside was almost serene. He saw Rhodonite in the distance, taking a long walk by the sea, and the view somehow calmed him. Maybe it would be good for her to meet Pearl, maybe they could actually help each other somewhat.

The Off-Colours had lost so many in the caves. He knew their names now, and their stories, but he hadn’t known them, and maybe that was something that had always separated him from the Off-Colours in the beginning. That was gone now. He didn’t know whether to be happy.

The messaging device in his pocket vibrated in its weird, blocky way. He took it out. Emerald was calling. With a heavy sigh, he picked up the phone. Emerald was staring at him, her face awfully close to her device, her nose even poking slightly into Lars’s hand with its 3D-Effect. Gem technology was something.

“Hey, Merry, what’s going on? Miss me much?”, he said, his voice full of its usual snark.

“They’re coming for the body.” She looked over her shoulder. “I shouldn’t be here.  But you’ll all die. All of you. You need to…” She started whispering. He heard footsteps approach on her end of the line. “You need to get out.”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Lars tried to keep his voice down, but Lion was waking up next to him, yawning.

“I – I can’t talk right now. I heard a Hessonite talking about it. I don't really know anything, but... you need to get away. There’s a plan or something. I don’t even know why I’m doing this, and if anything happens to me, that’s on you.”

“Merry, seriously, explain.”

“They want the body, you idiot good-for-nothing. They want the gem.”

Just when Lars was about to ask something – who’s coming, how many, when – he heard one of the Homeworld doors open behind Emerald, and she hung up immediately, her expression panicked.

And just like that, Lars was shaking. He had to go back and tell Pearl, organise a mission, find out who was coming and when. Or just… give up. Run. Forget about it. Give them the gem. It would be useless, they couldn’t force Pink to reform, right? He felt a side of himself he rarely showed anymore gnawing at him. What if they destroyed Earth if the Crystal Gems didn’t give up? What if they destroyed Beach City, Sadie’s grave?

He swallowed.

No, he couldn’t do anything yet. His thoughts were racing, each one trying to shove the others to the side violently. He needed Steven, or Sadie, or anything, and he needed all of it and all of them so much. He remembered an old Sadie Killer and the Supspects CD he kept in the ship. Time to think. That's what he needed. But, most importantly, he needed to get a clear head. Should he even tell Pearl? How would she take it, the fact that she just might lose Steven once again if things went awry? Maybe… maybe he’d keep Pearl in the dark for a second. Until she calmed down. Until she came outside to get him.

The sun was rising. Emerald’s pained expression was still clear in Lars’s mind. What if she got shattered? No, Merry was crafty. She’d manage. Maybe. Most likely. Maybe not.

Okay, what could they do, realistically? With their resources, with anything Bismuth, Peridot and Pearl could build in the meantime, with the second crew and ship of Off-Colours? If all three of the Diamonds came, there wasn’t much, except for sabotage they could do beforehand. If two of them came, they might have to count their losses, but they could still put up a fight. If only one, maybe Blue or Yellow, made the trip to Earth, there was a chance they might even get out of this with all of their gems intact.

But would it be worth it?

Lars felt the presence of Pearl burning a hole into his back. He shouldn’t be thinking this. She’d fight. Of course she’d fight. And Garnet would, and Amethyst would, and everyone, but…

Was it worth it? Was there really anything they’d gain by keeping his mortal remains here? Was it important enough to risk everyone getting shattered or worse? Lars wanted to rip out his hair, but his hand just phased into it, ending up in the airless dimension that connected him to both Lion and Connie.

 _Was there any point?_ He couldn’t ask Pearl that. All the trust they had built up would vanish in an instant, and he’d again feel alone on Earth, now with no reason to visit at all except for a grave and an empty house.

Also, could he ask the Off-Colours to help if his heart wasn’t in the mission? He just couldn’t imagine Steven wanting anyone to risk their lives trying to protect… it wasn’t him anymore, was it?

The thought alone was enough to make Lars want to barf.

“Lars?”, Pearl asked, suddenly appearing behind him, as if out of thin air. He was so startled he almost dropped the device.

“What… what happened? Is something the matter?”

Lion was moving his head between the two of them, unmoving. He’d get sucked into the conflict as well. Yes, they had almost defeated the Diamonds once already, but this was different. There was no Steven there to help. The boy had told Lars all about the fight, the one just before the Diamonds realised he was both Pink and himself, but it had seemed like the Crystal Gems wouldn’t have won, or wouldn’t have won as much, without Steven’s help.

This was bad.

This was really bad.

And if White came, no, if White wanted to get involved at all…

_Corruption._

He’d seen it. He’d heard the others talk about it. Oh, no.

Anything but this.

“I don’t know what happened”, he said, “but, uh... well… are _you_ doing better now?”

His voice was shaking and he knew it. Pearl must have noticed. Pearl must have known, right then, that something was off. She nodded.

“Are you alright, yourself? You seem a little distraught, if I may say so.”

“Me? Me? Oh, Pearl, I’m perfectly fine! I’m gonna go talk to Peridot and Bismuth for some ship upgrades, see you soon, I’ll be back!”

He ran off as quickly as his feet could carry him. Pearl wanted to yell after him, but a strange thought grabbed her mind: he was trying to get away from her because she was entirely too sad. Steven had told her that first appearances weren’t always what they seemed to be, but then again… What was she supposed to do now? Run after him and apologise? She didn’t feel any more strength left inside her to run, or do anything. She’d lie down somewhere, wait for the Crystal Gems and for Lars to come back.

But what if he wouldn’t?

He would. Surely. Even though she had entrusted him with a weight she herself was barely able to carry.

Maybe he wouldn’t.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The next chapter should be ready in the coming one or two weeks. In the meantime, I'm always, always glad to read your comments and opinions.


	10. #10

“Rhod!”, Lars said, coming up next to her. She had watched him approach with her brows furrowed, all of them, but could now finally see that his expression wasn’t merely sad because of Pearl, or glad to see her – no, this was different altogether. He looked tense, his entire body a barely contained explosion ready to burst.

“Captain, what happened?”

“Why can everyone _read_ me like a freaking _book?_ ”, he yelled, exasperated. The waves hit his boots, submerging the hotness in his body into their cool lustre. Maybe there was enough time to take a long swim, only until he knew how to talk about the things waiting for them in the future… no. He had to tell Rhodonite, effective immediately.

“Come on”, he said, “we need to get going. Bismuth and Peridot.”

That’s definitely not what he had wanted to say. Why was he waiting? What reason could he have not to inform Rhodonite?

But he could see it. How scared she'd be. How well she knew the diamonds, having a Pearl inside her. Maybe this was out of her league, maybe this was even more than he could ask of any of them, especially when he himself wasn't sure what he was even doing anymore. Putting one foot in front of the other was already too difficult to manage, making him waver on his path, stumble over small rocks, all the while Rhodonite tried to keep up with him, hurried and confused.

“They didn’t call about the new beams and thrusters, I’m not sure they are-“

“We need to check, anyway. Come along. Aren’t you my right-hand gem?”

It still felt like the first time he had said it. The Great Chase after they had liberated the prison, fleeing from Emerald. Rhodonite had managed to activate the shields at the last possible second and, in a panicked flurry of words, told Rut and Tile to move as quickly as they could toward Emerald’s ship to ram it head-on, shields full, hope almost lost. He had given her the title as soon as he had regained consciousness.

That Aquamarine had arrived mere moments later, two further ships in tow, causing all the Off-Colours to make peace with their demise before Lars had performed the miracle, only slightly tainted the memory. It had been a triumph, after all, hadn’t it?

Rhodonite fell into a stride next to Lars, who was walking forward to with so much energy and fervour she kept looking back to see who he was walking away from. She spotted Pearl on the balcony, but, being unable to read her expression from this far away, opted no ask Lars whether something had gone wrong.

“Sir”, she said, after a while of walking, “wouldn’t it be better to use one of the Warp-Pads?”

Lars stood for a moment, then pointed toward the Sun Incinerator. The ship looked like it was putting its toes into the water, calm and serene, enjoying the ocean breeze of a free planet.

“We’re using the ship, of course! Then they can – they can check if the upgrades fit! Exactly!”

He struck a thoughtful pose. Would she even buy it?

“Good thinking!”, Rhodonite said. She hadn’t thought of taking the ship, and it would be much easier to bring the ship to their workshop than having them transport all of their equipment to the beach.

Lars relaxed. He had at least bought an hour, or a couple more minutes, before he had to reveal the reality crashing into the peace of their stay. He should've known something would happen. Nobody ever left Steven alone when he was alive, why would they stop now? He entered the ship with a sigh. If they all decided to fight this, and he was sure they would, he'd have to spend a lot of time in here again, the expanses of space flashing by. Destination, as of yet, unknown. But that was nothing new. He sat down by the controls. 

Rhodonite had learned how to control the ship’s flight modules by herself, and though she wasn’t as good a pilot as Rut or especially Tile, she was still surprised Lars seemed to think she needed help, sitting down beside her and turning on what he called the "ignition". It had worked using a gem signature before, but a good hundred years ago Peridot and Pearl had built a new interface, one he could activate with his hands.

“We’re setting course for the New Barn”, he said, “remember the coordinates?”

“Yes, of course, Sir. Right here, it’s in the quick menu.”

“Ah, thanks, Rhod.”

“Captain, what’s wrong?”

“Rhod…”

Lars looked down, his long fingers clenched into fists. He took off his glove and rubbed his face, as if to wipe away sweat that wasn’t there. Maybe they should just fly, Rhod thought, maybe it would all sort itself out. She wanted to put an arm around him, wondering if now would be the appropriate time, when she heard a quiet, but distinct knock on the ship’s door.

“Captain…”

“I’ll check the camera, Rhod.”

A grainy image of the Off-Colours appeared on screen. Rut and Tile were holding on to each other’s hands, Fluorite’s hands were nervously twiddling their thumbs, and even Padparadscha had her face in a frown. Lars stood up and opened the hatch by pressing his hand on a panel next to it, the wall lighting up in a cascade of yellow wires. The sea breeze immediately flooded the room. Even though he knew what he had to do now, even though he could guess why Pad was especially nervous, the smell still took him back. 

He took a long look at the beach. At one point, he’d spent all of his life here. Weird. Now he was asking himself whether he should reveal that the Earth might be expecting another galactic invasion. Back then, he sold Donuts to Buck. The Big Donut was gone now. Buck was, too. But Lars was still there, and he had people to take care of.

“Sir”, Rut began. “Padparadscha said something today, and we just want to ask you”, Tile said. She had always been the slightly more confident of the two, though Lars sometimes still didn’t understand just how much of their mind the two shared. They only laughed when they laughed together, and cried together, too.

“What did you see, Pad?”, Lars asked.

Padparadscha took a minute to respond. She approached Lars. He kneeled down to her and moved her hair from her glistening, orange eye. She was blinking rapidly, not maintaining eye contact for long before here eyes darted to Rhodonite, still in the pilot’s seat, or Lars’s cape.

“Hey”, Lars said, “whatever it was, we’ll be fine. I’ll protect you.”

The first time she’d been scared, obviously and completely terrified, he had wrapped his arms around her soft clothes and only let go once she’d stopped shaking. That had been a good a hundred and fifty years ago, when they had found more Off-Colours on a colony and started the second crew. This was not quite as bad, but he was ready to do it again, anytime.

Padparadscha nodded.

“I had a vision. You received terrible news concerning Pink Diamond”, she said.

“At. First. We. Thought. She. Meant. The. Death. Itself.”

“But”, Rut said, “she’s never been that far back!” Tile nodded.

“Yeah”, Lars said, “she’s right.”

He stood up in front of the ship and looked around. These were the bravest, strongest gems he’d met in all the galaxy. But now, they were holding on to themselves and each other for comfort, their heads turned toward him, waiting for the reveal, for anything. The name of a Diamond still struck fear into their hearts, he knew. But “terrible news concerning Pink Diamond” could be anything, and anything might be even scarier than the black void he’d plunge them into in a minute. He savoured the moment before telling them. It was the last seconds before he had to slowly put his plan into motion – meaning, before they asked him what to do and he had to improvise, as he always had.

“I think the Diamonds are coming to retrieve Pink Diamond’s gem”, he said.

Fluorite stopped in her tracks, her arms and fingers standing still as if frozen. She looked at Lars with all of her eyes wide open, her back slowly folding into itself.

“A-all. Of. Them?”

“We don’t know.”

“What are they going to do? Try to make her reform?”, Tile asked.

“The Diamonds!”, Pad said. Her head was turning quickly. What was she looking at? It seemed to Lars that she was looking up at tall figures to the right and left of her, each one terrifying her more than the last.

She was confused by the possible presents and pasts, Lars realised. It had already happened once when he had asked her what the Diamonds were doing a couple of hours ago, just before they had embarked on the prison break. Before she could focus on their past, she had to wade through a bunch of decisions they'd made and thoughts they'd had since, proving too much to handle at times. Only the Diamonds had ever made her this confused, though. Everyone else's past seemed much easier to burrow into. 

He picked up her incredibly light and small body and seated her on his upper arm, like a child. She calmed down a bit, resting her eye, and he could feel her hand holding on to his back. It might have been a weird thing to think, but being needed by her this way made him feel like he could do anything. 

“We don’t know much of anything right now”, Lars said. “Emerald sent me the message.”

“Emerald? Are you sure we can trust her?”

In his moment of looking at the Off-Colours in front of him, he had forgotten all about Rhodonite behind him. He turned to see her expression – horror, utter, abject horror, now mixed with the slight hope of a chance of a possibility that Emerald might just be playing a cruel prank.

“She was serious. Dead serious. Wait, I’ll… I’ll show you.”

Lars pulled out his messaging device, hoping to God the last message had still been recorded – and it had been. He was always surprised at Gem technology, but then again, it made sense to record everything if most of your calls were orders from superiors.

The Off-Colours huddled around him. They watched, wordless, as Emerald explained the situation and Lars kept asking questions that stayed, for the most part unanswered. During the part when Lars could hear steps in the Background, she asked Lars to stop and replay the section, only louder.

“Do. You. Hear. The. Floating. Sound?”

Listening intently, Lars could make out something like someone scratching sandpaper next to the other steps.

“Yeah, what about it?”

“That. Must. Be. White. Diamond’s. Pearl.”

Everyone stared at Fluorite.

“White Diamond?”, Lars asked.

He'd heard of her once. They'd stopped at a Colony, old, almost ancient, and had found a single statue of a woman with extremely spiky hair on it, much like an Anime character's. When she had seen it, Fluorite had immediately requested that they should return to the ship, speaking so quickly that Lars had almost forgotten it was her. "This is White Diamond's", she had said, all her hands wringing and wiring, "and it would be bad to stay here any longer."

In the ship, he'd been a silent witness to a conversation about the secretive gem, the greatest of greats, the thunder and the lightning. The fear was all-too present, a deep foreboding that came when people spoke of her. The oldest. The greatest. The most illustrious. One of Fluorite’s gems had seen her, and one of the other Off-Colours who had long since been found and shattered had actually known somebody who had known her – White Diamond had her own palace on the other side of Homeworld, far away from everyone else, made to house only her tired, unmoving, but still incredibly powerful body in her head-shaped ship.

“If. White. Comes”, Fluorite said, back in the present, “There. Is. No. Hope.”

Lars took a deep breath.

Showtime.

“You see, Fluorite”, Lars said, “I believe you’re wrong about that. Look at us.”

Tile and Rut looked at each other. Rhodonite just hugged herself a bit tighter.

“We’re pirates of the highest order”, he continued, his heart or what remained of it pounding, “and we can do whatever we set out to do. White Diamond’s coming? We steal her fuel. All three wanna crash this planet? We move the planet somewhere else.”

His voice grew louder.

“What did you all say before we escaped from Prison? Rut, what did you say?”

“I was sure we’d die”, she said, “I was absolutely sure…”

“Exactly. Rhod, remember when Aquamarine’s ship showed up in front of us? What you told me?”

“I, I said thi-this is the end, but, this time, it's diff-“

“No! No it’s not! We’ll find out what’s going on, we’ll get Emerald, we’ll make it out of this. I promise you. And… and if we don’t… then we do it together. Because we can’t just let these guys boss us around. We have to show them that we will protect our own, no matter what. They can’t have Steven.”

“Are you sure?”, Pad said.

Lars felt something inside of him break. Was he sure? Was he sure risking Rutile’s lives, or the lives of any of the Off-Colours would be worth it in the end? So what if they managed to repel the Diamonds if one of the Fluorite’s gems got shattered in the process?

But Padparadscha was looking at him, her eye full of conviction, his reflection large within it. Captain Lars. And what would Steven do?

Steven would protect his friends, no matter what. Lars’s stomach turned and twisted, his entire body feeling light it was in two or three places at once, but he knew exactly what he had to say.

“Yeah”, he said, “I’m sure.”

“ _Who are we?_ ”, he yelled. It only took them a second to catch on. They hadn’t done this in years.

“ _We’re the Off-Colours!_ ”, they said.

“ _And what are we?_ ”

“ _Awesome!_ ”

Rhodonite didn’t join in.

Back in the ship, he only had to take a look at her to know that the issue loomed large in her mind.

“Lars”, she said, “are you really sure we can make it through this?”

“Rhod, I’ll tell you as soon as I know what this even is.”

“Alright. But… don’t bite off more than you can chew. We really - it's the Diamonds, Captain, I'm not sure you understand what you're getting all of us into, and I - I'm not sure I can...”

“Once we’re by the Barn, take the Warp Pad back and round up the Crystal Gems. I’ll tell Bismuth and Peridot. Can you do that for me?”

“O-of course, Sir, but...”

“Thank you. And Rhod?”

“Y-yes? What’s wrong?”

He looked at her without turning his head, watching her out of the corner of his eye.

“If you don’t want to fight, you don’t have to.”

They didn’t say a word after that. Rhodonite felt something bite her insides. He... he couldn't be serious, right? She had to tell him he was wrong to say that, she had to do something, right now.

But a voice in her head still stopped her from saying she would fight by their side, of course she would, nothing would stop her - and she hated herself for it. 

Once they arrived at the Barn, they seemed to part without another word before the Captain called her back. 

"Lars, I'm really - please, I just need you to understand that...", she started, but he didn't even listen. 

"It's fine. Really. Just tell the second crew before you leave. Here."

He tossed her his messaging device and left. She stood there for a long while, leaning against the ship, before she found the strength to warp back to the temple.


	11. #11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, any form of criticism is very welcome! Sorry for the slow updates, I've been busy with school and some other writing-related stuff.

The air before the barn was thick with anticipation, and Lars felt it grow tense around him. The grass, the fields, the never-ending cornucopias of corn Peridot had planted looked as alive and thriving as they always had, but they were missing something. He'd never gone to the barn without Steven, and now, there he was, leaving the actual dirty work to Rhodonite because he could face Bismuth, Peridot, even Lapis, but he wouldn't be able to tell Pearl. Not with the way he'd calmed her, not with the way he'd stroked her hair the night before.

Not with the way she'd cried, anyway.

The barn had been rebuilt, in detail, with small additions through the years making it look even more barn-y than before. A second house, a larger main one, recoloring, another floor way on top of the already spacious ground floor, and a number of pictures on the sides, of tomatoes and pumpkins and Peridot together with Lapis, watching over their kingdom. Steven and Connie had drawn together, Lars remembered, all those years ago when the barn had been refurnished for the first time. They'd made additions over the years, hadn't they? He noticed a sunset he'd never seen before. There was a third gem there, larger than the two of them, one that Lars had never seen before, but its form seemed to hint at a large comfort contained within, an anxiety somehow calmed by itself, its long arms wrapped tenderly around its torso Lars touched the wooden wall, tracing its many cracks with his fingers. These places, along with the Beach House and anything gem-related, never seemed to change. They remained. As did he. At some point, they'd probably be gone too. Maybe someone would burn them, he thought.

A catastrophe, a tsunami, a death in the family, a Diamond invasion. Nothing was sacred. 

Or, just maybe, Peridot and Lapis would be here forever, until the Earth itself would seize to be, guardians of a nature they adopted so wholly it might as well have been made for them.

He gave a loud knock.

"Peridot! Are you in there? I'm coming in!"

He opened the unlocked door with a large motion, ready to strike a small pose before Peridot's world would inevitably come tumbling down, but something immediately flew into his face as soon as it left the door's protective screen.

He felt a wetness, the smell of Halloween, and heard Peridot scream terror and tyranny somewhere in the back. Pumpkin.

The little critter was licking his face all over, ecstatic, only to look down at him and see that he wasn't Steven, that he had merely smelled like him. The licking calmed down considerably, but Lars wished it back. Its warmth, even with its gooey awkwardness, had made sense. Whatever was coming didn't.

"Pumpkin, c'mon, get off Lars", Peridot said. 

Lars looked up at her. She was standing tall with her Limb Enhancers back in place, offering him a hand with floating digits to help him get up. He took it, carrying Pumpkin under his arm and dusting himself off with the other.

"He didn't scare you or anything, did he?", she asked.

Lars shook his head no. "I might have to scare you guys now, though."

"What is this? A prank? Are you putting this on the Tube?"

Peridot's eyes grew wide. 

"Steven's not back, is he?"

"No, I'm afraid not."

"Ah, I see."

Peridot looked down, twiddling her thumbs.

"The Gems, they - they tried to explain. They're being helpful on this. But I'm afraid I... I still don't understand."

"Where's Lapis?"

Lars saw her. Of course he did. Saw the way she was looking for something, anything, much like Pearl had. Steven was the only reason Peridot had ever ended up on earth, after all. But Lars also probed within himself for anything resembling the power he'd need to both talk about Steven and about the Diamonds and he only found enough flame left for one.

He didn't want to admit it, but he shouldn't have been so cruel to Rhodonite. They'd need to have a talk about this sometime in the future, far away from Earth.

As always when the Off-Colours came to Earth, they wouldn't stay long. Sadie would scream and bicker, tell him to stay, to at least spend the night, but she wasn't there anymore.

"She's with Bismuth, they're below", Peridot answered. "Hey, how come you're visiting? I heard you're mostly with Pearl this time. Is she... is she okay? Is there anything I can do? Does she want to watch some TV?"

"I don't think Camp Pining Hearts can do much for her."

"Ah, yes. Of course. I... I should've known. Though there is a remake now that actually takes a good twist on the source material."

She looked up at Lars before quickly averting her gaze again. "So, you came for Lapis?"

"No, I need all three of you. I'm afraid it's serious."

"Oh - al-alright! I'll get them. I can get them for you. Just wait here."

"Peridot, relax."

"I can't."

She seemed so much smaller now, as if even her Limb Enhancers couldn't hide the fragility of her form.

"You see, I - I see him everywhere, and I..."

"Peridot, can you do me a favour?"

If she could, she would've swallowed then and there.

"Yeah?"

"Can you hook up a TV to our ship before we leave? And maybe, you know, give me that Pining Hearts Remix?"

"Remake", she said. A smile crept onto her face, however small. Lars breathed the smallest sigh of relief.

"Come to the Beach House tonight", he said, "we'll have a general meeting."

"That's about enough time to apply the upgrades and the TV! I'm on it."

She gave Lars a small Diamond salute before catching herself and doing a human, American one. Lars felt something stir when she left, but he pushed it down until later. No need to dwell on war, on conflict. 

He turned his head toward Peridot when he heard the squeaking noise of large heaps of metal being moved. She was levitating something almost the size of the barn now. Their new Thrusters. A smaller cannon and an even smaller TV trailed behind her as she walked them to the Warp Pad.

Lars took a deep breath and entered the barn. Knick-knacks everywhere, Meepmorps strewn about and forgotten, gathering dust that couldn't be much thicker than a couple of weeks. He wondered what Peridot and Lapis had been doing while Steven lay dying. Maybe he'd find out at some point, when all of this would be over and they could talk in peace, grieve, do whatever it was they needed to do.

As it was now, he looked for the small staircase leading down into the barn's large basement, and dove into its green lights, already hearing a blacksmith hard at work somewhere further inside. The basement was growing incredibly hot, and if Lars's body had been anything like before that day, he would have been sweating bullets. Then again, he probably would have done that even without the heat.

 His one prior meeting with Bismuth had given his ship its then-newest cannon, but it had also made him aware of the fact not everyone had been happy about the peace with the Diamonds. If anyone would fight, it would be Bismuth.

And, truth be told, Lars didn't know how he felt about that.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A short chapter in which Lars meets Peridot and notices this is even harder than he thought before.
> 
> The moment all is revealed to the Gems is nearing. Will they fight? Will they surrender? Will they split apart?
> 
> Find out soon.


	12. #12

Lars took a deep breath and entered the dark of Bismuth's new domain. The sounds of metal clanging on softer metal flooded his ears, a steady rhythm punctuated by only the most necessary of words - a grunted "there", a short "humph", and a "good" when all was over. Lapis must be helping her, but how? He never knew Lapis was much for blacksmithing - not nearly as much as Peridot could be, anyway. 

A long hallway decorated by swords, daggers, axes and shields led into a larger room, the source of the heat. Lars took a moment to simply stand there and wonder. Its sheer size seemed impossible before he noticed a large flight of stairs leading down to it, each stair marvelously furnished with small ornaments at its edges. As he was walking down, he kept his eyes on Bismuth and Lapis standing by the hearth, two large specks of light and dark blue in front of the bright red wall. Lapis was pressing a watery hand down on top of the large bellows to Bismuh's right, the air they pumped making the hearth run ever hotter. There was no other light in the room, and Bismuth cast a large shadow across the entire forge, lifting her arm to pull something that looked like the tip of a spear out of the forge. Her hand transformed into a hammer and brought all of its force down upon the searing metal, bending it to its will. 

"Okay, now", Bismuth said, her voice hushed, evaporated water collecting in her hair. She looked like she had always been made for this, and Lars wondered if that was a good thing to say to Crystal Gem. They'd fought to do anything but, after all.

Lapis brought some strange, luminescent blue water out of a nearby bucket, formed it into a paper-thin projectile and slowly brought it down upon the metal on Bismuth's anvil. Lars walked closer to inspect the result: the spear, most parts of it still glowing a bit red, now had a blue heart glowing on it, slowly spreading some sort of blue aura across the metal. 

Both Bismuth and Lapis were so deep into their work they barely noticed Lars approach. They reminded him of the way Sadie had written her "Black Album" after her mother had died. So many memories of grief seemed to pool into a single vessel, a small teacup, that was still too heavy for anyone to shoulder. Lars sighed. He took another look at the spearhead.

"Now that's something...", Lars whispered. 

Bismuth let out an ear-piercing scream. "Not in my domain, Lars! Not in my domain. Please. I told you."

"I'm sorry, it's just - you two looked so in tune, I really didn't want to bother."

"Lars!", Lapis said, moving a small bubble of water towards his face, almost like a peck on the cheek. She looked almost happy here, content to be doing something, he thought.

Especially with the news he was bringing.

"Didn't want to - and what in the stars' name are you doing now? You're a pink little doofus, aren't ya?"

"Bismuth, don't mess with the Captain", he said, eliciting a little giggle from Lapis's side of the room. 

"Ah, c'mere!"

Bismuth grabbed and pulled him into a large bear hug, smushing his face against her broad chest. He swore that he could feel her muscles swelling, ready to crush him under their weight. It felt strangely comforting to know he would die here, in the forge, hugged to death, just like Steven probably would have wanted him to go. 

The thought made him snort. He'd have to tell Lapis about it at some point, when all of them weren't still stuck between two Stevens, the one that was there still and the one what wasn't anymore.

"So, what brings you here, Lars?", Bismuth asked. "Wanna grab Lapis and head into town?"

"I'm just about ready to call it a day for now", Lapis said, the watery hand folding into itself until it disappeared back in another bucket. There were five, six, maybe even seven of them around the Ocean Gem, half of them already empty. How many had they made? 

As if anticipating his question, Bismuth pointed to a sizable pile of weapons of all kinds. "We've been hard at work here today", she said, "ever since my last assignment's over, I've been free to try some new stuff, and Lapis and I started experimenting with some neat stuff. Guess you never stop learning."

"Last assignment?"

"The statue."

Bismuth's shoulders dropped a little before she could catch herself. She let go of Lars completely, her large hand dropping before balling into a fist, its fingers crunching violently against the palm. Lapis put a hand on her shoulder, but Bismuth merely shook her head. 

"He gave me a chance, you know", she said, "so I'm not sad like Pearl is. Not for as many people, anyway. Rose wouldn't have let me out. I don't miss Rose, not anymore. But... Steven..."

"Hey, Bismuth, listen", Lapis said, "I'm not - I'm not good at talking, and saying the right stuff, but Lars is, and if you wanna come along, we can just go together. And you can, you know. Talk it out."

Bismuth seemed to contemplate it for a second. Lars felt his stomach drop ever further. How could he tell them about the Diamonds now? Why couldn't he just accept the reality Bismuth offered him now, the one where he could simply go and talk it out with Lapis, whatever "it" was, and Bismuth might even come along, a world where they could form a little batch of threes. But he'd already sent Rhodonite to tell the others, and there was no going back now, not anywhere.

Steven wouldn't have told the immediately. He would have waited, a day at the very least, to make sure everyone had their time to grieve. Lars was a failure, yet again. He even sent Rhodonite to tell Pearl.

"Lars, what's up?", Lapis asked. Bismuth turned her head. 

"Yeah, Pinky. What's up? You look like you got something on your mind."

"Well, it's..."

"You wanna go outside?" Lapis's eyes darted to the door. "It might be a bit lighter outside, you know":

"No, no, it's not that, it's not that at all", Lars said, waving his arms in a futile attempt to dispel their worries.

He took a deep breath.

"The Diamonds are coming. For Steven's body." 

While Lapis expression grew so dim Lars could barely make out her eyes beneath her hair, a deep shadow casting itself across her features, Bismuth stood taller than he'd ever seen her. She brushed her hair back and took a long, stern look at him. He only wished he looked half as imposing when he was doing his Captain-ing.

"How do you know?", she asked. "Who told you?"

"Emerald, a gem in Homeworld's army our ship has... a relationship with. Or something. I'm not sure."

"Can we trust her?"

"Mostly, yeah, well..."

"Did she risk anything by telling us?"

"Yeah. She did.""

"How many are coming?"

"I don't know. She didn't either, and she didn't have much time to tell us."

"We need to tell the others about this. Do they know?"

"Rhod's on her way."

"Then we better not waste any time. Lapis, let's go. Off to the Warp Pad. Lapis? Quit standing around, we need to move now. We don't know how much time we have left."

Lapis shook her head, then started cackling, before it grew into full on laughter. "They - it's not even been a week! Not even a day since the funeral!"

"That's why we need to put them in a bubble as soon as they set foot here", Bismuth said. 

"Oh, we will", Lapis answered, her eyes almost glowing, "we'll get them." Her entire aura had changed, and the buckets around her shook with anger. Some of the water spilled out and spread across the floor, reaching to Lapis's feet in an instant. "We'll get them so hard they'll never come back here. We'll tear them apart." 

Bismuth nodded. "That's the spirit."

They both walked out of the forge and the barn so quickly Lars could do nothing but trail idly behind. Whatever he had expected, it hadn't been this, and not this much of it. 

If all the others were as ready to step onto the warpath, he wasn't sure whether he could keep holding his line, smiling, being the big Captain - and whether Rhodonite would even still want to follow him anywhere at all if he did. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for being so patient with all of this, you guys! Can't even tell you how happy I am to read your comments every time. The next chapter's the "big one" for now, but I still hope you enjoy this one.


	13. #13

Garnet, Amethyst and Pearl sat on the couch, Garnet firmly in the middle, the others to either side. Rutile leaned against the door, their backs arched, eyes downcast.

Flourite was curled around the top area, watching the unfolding silence with a nervous gaze, as if she were just about to say something, but stopped herself every single time. Antoine Dewey sat on one of the kitchen’s stools, tipping away at his Laptop, already preparing a protocol for his superiors.

Rhodonite stood by Rutile, occasionally sparing a glance at the Crystal Gems, otherwise waiting for Lars to approach through the Warp Pad. There were so many things to say, and maybe their time was running low, its last embers burning out. She watched Padparadscha, sitting on one of the couch’s arms, fix her hair for the fifteenth time, pull up her gloves, readjust the straps of her dress. The orange gem looked up and met her eyes.

“We will wait in silence before Lars arrives”, she said solemnly. Amethyst gave a polite little snort.

“I can’t stand this”, Garnet said, “what is it he wants say?”

The Rutiles were just about to answer before Rhodonite stepped in, putting a shaking hand on one of their shoulders. Both her and Garnet were fusions of two gems in love, but she always felt utterly overwhelmed by the leader’s presence. Garnet seemed to tower above her, even if they were almost the same height. She wanted to wear Diamond-sized heels to just to know what it would feel like not to tremble before her whenever she was anything but perfectly nice to her.

“I-I’m sure he’d like to tell you himself”, she said, “s-so, if we could just wait one more second before he comes back…”

“But you know what he wants to tell us, right? Why don’t you just do it and get it over with?”, Pearl said, exhasparation in her voice. Sitting around together wasn’t doing anyone any favours.

Amethyst kept chewing gum loudly, Garnet’s food couldn’t stop tapping, Pearl sighed every other minute and the Off-Colours weren’t much better. Fluorite’s fingers intertwining and entwining themselves made a sound, too, even if she didn’t notice.

But that wasn’t it. The reason they were on edge was clear, as clear as lion’s soft snores coming from behind the door.

There was a Steven-sized hole in the house now. Everyone was there, but the most important person was missing. The waves kept crashing into the beach, ever-present, but they felt so quiet, so far away.

The warp-pad activated just as Peridot stepped through the door with a quizzical expression – she hadn’t expected everyone to be there.

“Oh man, did someone d-“

Bismuth stormed into the room.

“Gems, prepare your weapons! A fight’s coming!”

At last, the Captain stepped into the room.

“Lars”, Garnet said, her voice strict and not a little tired of waiting, “what’s the meaning of this?”

“Yes, I guess I should’ve let him say it first”, Bismuth said, laughing. Lars didn’t remember ever seeing her this motivated to do anything but build the second barn. He clutched at his arm. She’d take an entire armada down on her own if she kept this up.

Lars cleared his throat, just to do something before he started speaking. He looked at Rhodonite. She gave him a small nod of encouragement. The fact she wasn’t upset with him for telling her she could leave made his insides boil warm, but then he spared a glance at Pearl.

The same sadness. She was whispering to Amethyst, no doubt telling her to stop chewing gum, while keeping her eyes on him. The time he’d hugged her and stroked her hair on the very couch he could barely make out behind Garnet’s imposing form struck him as so far removed from now that it had ceased to exist at all, like a memory left out in the sun too long, shrivelled up beyond recognition.

“Garnet”, he said, “you might want to sit down for this.”

“I’m tired of sitting”, she answered, “and I’m tired of waiting. There’s a hole in all of our hearts, Lars, so this better be important.”

“Garnet, don’t…”, Pearl started, but Garnet silenced her with a move of her hand.

“Pearl, I understand. But all we need is time now, not meetings. Lars, please, let’s just get this over with.”

She breathed deeply.

“I’m sorry. I’m on edge. Please, tell us what you came here to say.”

“The Diamonds are coming”, he said, for what felt like the tenth time, “and they’re not leaving without Pink’s gem.”

Antoine stopped typing. The Off-Colours stared at the Crystal gems, waiting for a reaction.

Amethyst swallowed her gum. Garnet took of her visor and rubbed the bow of her eyes, scrunching up her own material so much it looked almost painful. Peal didn't move at all - she just kept staring at Lars, her eyes unmoving, expression blank.

“When?”, Garnet asked. "Do you know?"

“I don’t”, he said, “I'll need to talk to my source again.”

"Emerald", Garnet said. Lars nodded.

“A-are you sure this is legit?”, Amethyst said. “I mean, come on, this can’t be – they were just here. They were literally just on the beach a couple of days ago. Couldn’t they have just…”

“I can’t do this”, Pearl said.

Everyone turned to look at her. Her hands had taken her face like a vicious web of fingers and nails, obscuring her mouth and parts of her eyes.

“I can’t do this. I’ll die. I’ll die if they take him.”

“Pearl, we can’t – I know what you mean, I really do, but we can’t just do something if all three of them come!”

Amethyst turned to look at Lars. “How many?”

“We don’t know”, he said.

“So”, Garnet began, her voice shaking with anger, “that’s all we have right? We don’t know when, we don’t know how many, we don’t know…”

“That’s why we need to start preparing now!”, Bismuth said. “Peridot, you know those prototypes we’ve been working on?”

Peridot shook her head and pointed at herself with her limb-enhanced hands, chewing on one of her fingers while the others pulled at her hair.

“We can’t! They won’t be ready if they come soon, and if we don’t even know the deadline or what we’re up against, they could be completely useless!”

“We’ll adjust on the fly. Come on. I know you can do this.”

“Wait a second”, Antoine said, the wrinkles around his eyes furrowing in a collected expression of fear. “Do we need the military for this? Could this be a threat to the planet?”

“Well”, Lars said, “actually…”

“No”, Pearl said. “They won’t hurt the planet. They’ll keep her legacy. All they want to do is take him, and hurt us. And I won’t let them.”

“That’s what I’m talking about!”, Bismuth said. “We can start making the combat plans now.”

Lars felt a large whirl of voices take him. Pearl was murmuring to herself, a continued “I’ll die, I’ll die if they take him again”, Bismuth was already starting a war chant of some sort, Lapis was pulling Peridot closer, telling it would be fine, that they could do this as soon as they knew at least one of them wasn’t coming. Amethyst looked at Pearl, Pearl looked at Lars, Lars at Rhodonite, who was already stepping in, telling them how dangerous it would be before Garnet said a single sentence.

“We can’t win this.”

Silence. There had been so much silence this week, Lars thought. More than he ever remembered, even in the deepest depths of space, floating in space after he’d opened the portal to save them from Aquamarine, until he heard Rhodonite’s voice again. She was the first to speak now, too.

“I agree”, she said, “there’s no point.”

“No point?”, Lapis said. “They – he’s our Steven. He lived all his life on Earth. He loves it here. We can’t let them just take him.”

“Steven – Steven is no more.” Garnet’s entire body shook for a moment. Bismuth stabilised her, but as soon as she could stand again, Garnet pushed her away gently.

“If we fight, there’s no guarantee all of us make it out of this”, she said. “And what would Steven want? For us to stay here, on Earth, and live our lives, or to die keeping him here?”

Amethyst yelled out.

“Ahh! This is all so hard! Why does this have to happen now?”

Pearl stood up.

“I can’t. I can’t stand by.”

She walked over to Bismuth. Her feet were shaking, her arms clutching at her stomach, but she made it there in one piece. Lars looked at her. She spared him a glance before she stared up across the room at Garnet, meeting the leader's sad eyes with a determined gaze.

“I’ll fight. No matter what.”

“Pearl”, Garnet said, nothing but tenderness in her voice, but Pearl wasn’t having any of it.

“Listen, if he’s gone, that means our lives – my life…”

A ringing. It took Lars a while to understand where it was coming from.

He pulled the galaxy phone out of his pocket, its screen displaying a single word while the Diamonds' melody played.

Emerald.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here we are.
> 
> I hope you all enjoyed this chapter - it's the first time most of the characters are interacting with each other. 
> 
> Also, do you think I should add small titles to the chapter titles in addition to just the numbers, for easier navigation? Lemme hear your thoughts and your thoughts on this chapter too, I always love reading your comments!


	14. #14

The phone kept ringing, ringing, ringing, the Diamond’s song filling every crevice of the Beach House. The entire room had turned to look at Lars, some with a curious expression, Rhodonite with nothing but nervous apprehension in her eyes.

“That’s her, isn’t it?”, she said.

Lars nodded. “It’s Emerald.”

“Pick up the phone”, Garnet said, “right now.”

“Hey”, Lars said, the phone still buzzing in his ear, “what if they can track our location if I pick it up?”

“They know where we are”, Amethyst said, her eyes downcast, “so what does it matter? We're not going anywhere.”

“Captain”, Fluorite said, “this. Might. Be. Important.”

Lars sighed and picked up the phone.

“Aaah!”, a grating voice greeted him, “I didn’t think they’d do it!”

_Requesting Video Signal._

Lars looked up at Garnet, then at Pearl, still standing next to Bismuth, who herself seemed to be ready to pounce on the phone and rip it to pieces at every moment.

“That was…”, Lars mouthed, but Garnet finished the thought for him. “Yellow Pearl.”

Lars accepted the video signal.

Yellow Pearl’s hair was still as fluffy as ever – the first time Lars had met her, he’d almost thought she was somewhat cute, too focused on her duties, sure, but not too different from the Pearl he knew. Then he’d seen the expression on her face, the same one on his phone right now. Pure arrogance, and nothing but disdain for him and everyone around him.

Even worse, her being the one to call over Emerald’s old line meant that something must have happened to her – at the very least, that she had been found out. Either way, this wasn't good in the least, and Lars could barely stop his hand from shaking. What if they'd shattered her? He couldn't lose yet another person who had made these past two hundred years bearable, even if she was a pain in his ass every other time they met.

“You have a Peridot lying around somewhere, don’t you?”, Yellow Pearl asked.

“We have a _highly skilled_ Peridot among us, that we do”, Lars said. Peridot walked over to the phone, with more than a hint of pride in her features, only dulled by the tension she must have been feeling at talking to _her_ again. Because where YP was, YD wasn’t too far away.

“Well, whatever you want to call her”, Yellow Pearl said, a smirk painting her amused features even more sinister, “tell her to connect her limb enhancers to the phone. She can do that, right? The Diamonds need a proper stage. You understand.”

Plural. Rut and Tile put an arm around Rhodonite. The fusion was shivering, arms wrapped around herself.

Lars looked over to Padparadscha. She was as calm as ever. He pulled up an eyebrow, and she moved her face so subtly he barely noticed it. Was she calling him, telling him to come closer?

“Peridot, I’m gonna hand this over to you”, Lars said, giving her the phone. “That okay?”

“Sure”, she said, already hard at work forming a barrier of her limb-enhanced fingers around the phone. The screen seemed widen, going over the phone’s edges, connecting to every single fingertip Peridot had spread out around it. She positioned the call in the middle of the room, so every Crystal Gem and Off-Colour could see it from the front, Antoine seeing an afterimage from the back, still seated on the kitchen stool, his typing fingers too quick to see.

Yellow Pearl walked off, disappearing from view. Bismuth, Pearl and Lapis spread out around the couch, Garnet firmly seated in the middle again, Amethyst by her side. Rhodonite and the Rutiles climbed up the stairs to be closer to Fluorite and Padparadscha. Lars followed suit, sitting down next to the orange gem.

“Pad”, he said, “you're seeing something, right? I’m gonna need you to pay very close attention to whatever it is. Can you do that for me?”

Padparadscha took a moment to answer, making sure she understood every single word in all of its implications. “Of course”, she said then, “I’m already at it.”

Rhodonite was listening in, trying to make out what they were talking about, but it only made her more nervous. Seeing something? What if they already had a weapon pointed at the Beach House that very moment? She shivered, a hand lost in the fluff of her hair, trying to grab at anything that made sense.

Lars was just about to extend a warm hand to Rhodonite when the screen was bathed into the brightest of white light, the gems averting their eyes from it for a second before they got used to it.

As if a curtain had been lifted, where once had been darkness was now a large, extravagant hall, with an enormous statue of White Diamond in the back. Two thrones were to either side of her. In another flash of light, two large figures appeared in the middle of the room.

Yellow and Blue Diamond. They were holding hands, staring ahead, past the camera or the phone held by Yellow Pearl - past the entire Galaxy, straight to the Beach House. The entire room felt their gaze on them, scrutinizing their every move. Amethyst's breath caught in her throat.

Lars was reminded of a scene that didn’t seem too far in the past even though it was before _everything,_ a moment when he had seen Steven yelling and stomping his foot, unable to help the boy because a bubble had encased his head.

He had died a day later. Been revived. Lived.

And now here they were again.

“Pearl”, Yellow Diamond said, her voice booming across the communication line, “bring it closer.”

“Yes, my Diamond!”, Yellow Pearl said, her voice almost elated.

Pearl shivered, leaning into Bismuth for a bit of support. How could anyone be so happy to fulfill ungrateful duties for eons upon eons? Bismuth’s large arm wrapped around her waist, and she was thankful Steven had returned her to them, just for this moment alone.

The Diamonds were now closer to the screen, their faces appearing in greater detail. Yellow looked positively annoyed, although Lars had learned that this was just her resting face.

Blue, on the other hand, looked like a wreck. Her hair, usually in such great shape on all her murals and pictures, was frayed at the edges, looking almost uncombed, like she hadn't bothered to look at herself in the mirror for weeks. Her Pearl, sitting on her shoulder, looked up at her Diamond with an expression of worry.

“Pad”, Lars whispered, “what’s up with Blue Diamond?”

“She will not have rested for a long time upon the beginning of the call”, Pad whispered back, “although I don’t see why yet.”

“Did you think you could deceive us, so-called _Pirate Captain Lars of the Stars_?”, Yellow Diamond said. All eyes in the Beach House previously busy with anything else at all, be it looking to somebody else for support, staring at the ground or simply staying closed, waiting for the Diamonds to break the silence, returned to the screen and stayed glued there. Yellow pointed right at Lars, and even across the distance separating them, he felt her iron will pushing up against his. She hadn't changed at all since the last time he'd seen her, but then again - and he needed to remind himself of this more often than he liked to admit - neither did he.

“Keeping an informant in our midst for so long”, Yellow continued, “you must have realised she would make a mistake at some point. And I was quite fond of her, too.”

“Bring her out”, Blue Diamond said, a sad shiver breaking her voice, “bring her out, now.”

Two Rubies, each of them fusions of three smaller Rubies, appeared with Emerald in their middle, Gem Destabilizers pointed firmly at her form. They were wearing Yellow Diamond's symbol, while Emerald was clad in black, stripped of all her rank and status. Her gem was fine, and it didn't look like she was in any pain, but that could change at any moment, a mere suggestion by the Diamonds spelling her doom.

“Emerald!” Lars jumped up. “What the heck happened?”

“She tried to tell you the date of the Diamond’s plan, even though they would’ve done so anyway! What a little fool”, Yellow Pearl said, her voice close and loud because she was still holding on to the phone.

“Well”, Emerald said, shrugging with a shaky smile that almost seemed completely unfazed by the course events, “I knew I wasn’t made for all this business, but can’t blame a gem for trying, huh? It's all your fault.”

Lars grimaced. She wasn't wrong, was she?

“Oh, we will try you”, Blue Diamond said, “but later.”

“Release her at once”, Lars said, standing up. “Release her, you clods.”

“Watch your tongue, earthling”, Yellow said, “we can wreck her at any moment.”

“You couldn’t wreck a piece of coal if I threw it right in your face”, Lars said. A surge of warmth filled his entire body, enveloping him from head to toe. He struck a pose, arms shaking but still pointing two index fingers right at the Diamonds.

“We will take her back before you know it.”

Garnet shot him a glare. He put his arms down, but still stood tall, or as tall as he could. He felt the Off-Colours grow closer behind him. He had to stand. Who else would?

“Take her _back?_ After… after you took all of them _away_ from us?”, Blue said, making a large movement with her arms that seemed to encompass the entire universe.

“You are weak”, Yellow said, “and your small successes are merely a matter of luck. But this is not about that.”

"Weak? Who you callin' weak? I'll show..." 

Lars had so much more to say, insults burning at the back of his mind, but Yellow Diamond but a stop to it all with a gesture. She made a small movement with the tip of her ring finger, and one of the Rubies turned on her Destabilizer, its bright yellow lightening cackling and cracking in the empty hall. The Ruby, without any hint of malice or contempt in her features, held it right up to Emerald's face. Emerald looked at it, her eye wide. She couldn’t help herself – her smile faltered, her shoulders, once adorned with shoulder pads so enormous she barely fit through a door, now slumped downwards, bare and thin. She looked at Lars, at Rhodonite, at any familiar face in the crowd. Lars remembered the time they’d spent together, alone – seeing her like this, now, after all the fears she’d expressed about exactly this happening, he nodded at her, barely noticeable but still there, only for her to see.

_Everything’s gonna be fine._

Emerald nodded back, standing up just a little straighter. There was a glimmer of hope in her eye - if Lars still had the audacity to nod, she might not be quite lost after all. If he was sure they would make it, they might just.

He was pretty sure they had all screwed up irreparably.

“What we’re here for is what you already know”, Yellow Diamond said. “We’re here…”

“You will offer Pink Diamond to us”, Blue Diamond interjected, “our dear sister, our dearest, dearest – and we will give you Emerald, alive and well, untouched, unharmed, her mind intact. This is as strong a promise as we can make. Do not resist - you know it is futile. In her name, we don't want to hurt you. But I want her here, by my side.”

“Does White Diamond know about this?”, Garnet asked, her arms crossed.

“If she finds out, you’re all dead”, Yellow Diamond answered, her features suddenly growing tense. “Be glad she’s not involved, we…”

“We just want her back. Do you not understand?”, Blue Diamond said. A blue Aura spread across the room – the Rubies started crying, their eyes almost seeming to leak, and Emerald held back a single tear. Yellow just closed her eyes for a second and shook her head, already used to Blue’s outbursts.

"You had her all this time - all we want is to try to bring her back on our terms. Maybe she'll reform on Homeworld and you might not even know it. Don't make us hurt you, we know - I know you were close to her heart. But if I have to go through you to bring her back - if we have to - we won't hesitate. An eternity of grief on Homeworld must end. If she truly will not reform, let her rest where she belongs."

Blue kept talking, something about the Crystal Gems having had Pink for what were millennia on Earth, but her presence being denied to the very people she herself called her family – but Lars didn’t listen. He stared at Yellow Diamond. She had her face turned away. He waited for something, didn’t even know what it was until it finally came. When Blue Diamond said they’d rain fire and fury down upon the Earth if they didn’t get Pink Diamond, she shook her head.

“Pad”, he asked, “what will Yellow think when she phone call starts?”

Pad thought, making sure every single word was exactly where it should be. When the letters found their order, the thought finally aligning itself with everything else she saw, she felt Lars's eyes trying to burn their path into her mind, anxious to find out whatever it was that kept her so occupied. She waved him even closer, keeping the truth for nobody's ears but his, saying it so quietly that Lars, at first, wasn’t even sure she’d said it. Then it hit him with the full force only a small glimmer of hope could, and he couldn’t keep a smile from creeping across his features like the phantom of brighter days, gone as soon as it had come.

“I thought you couldn’t tell what the Diamonds felt”, Lars said, hugging Padparadscha just a bit closer so her words could be even smaller.

He didn’t notice the bright red flush on her cheeks when she said “Yes, Captain, but if the thought is this strong…”

“If you don’t make an offer to return Pink to us in the span of the next Earth week”, Blue said, interrupting their moment, “we will see to her removal from this dreadful piece of dirt personally.”

“We will never…”, Bismuth started, but Garnet interrupted her.

“We’ll think about it”, she said, “and return to you with our decision.”

“But Garnet”, Pearl said, “we – we can’t just…”

“Oh!” Yellow Pearl turned the phone around, her face enormous on the screen. “It’s you! My Diamond knew you'd struggle with the idea, oh how right she was, my beautiful luminous...”

“Ahem. Pearl”, Yellow said.

“Sorry!”

The Diamonds appeared on screen again.

“One week”, Yellow Diamond said, “ that's all we give you. Mull it over. Talk. Fight amongst yourselves, if you have to. We will call you in six Earth days to see if you’ve come to your senses.”

The phone call ended with a mechanical whimper, soon sizzling out into nothing. Peridot’s fingers floated the phone up to Lars, who took it with a quiet “thank you”.

“So”, Garnet said, turning around to look at Lars, “what’ve y’all been whispering about up there?”

Lars smiled.

“Well.”

He gave Padaradpscha as small nod of encouragement. “Pad, what will Yellow be thinking when the call begins?”

Padparadscha waited until all eyes in the room were firmly on her. Her voice was shaking. "Y-Yellow..."

The Captain knelt down. "Pad, it's fine", he said. He lifted her onto his shoulder, her bright dress fluttering around his cape. "Go on. Don't worry."

“Yellow Diamond”, she started again, her voice level and confident now, “will think that this is all a very bad idea."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I shall leave you all with this for a little while. Hope you're having fun with where the story is going now. Next chapter, we'll get deeper into the conflict - and might just leave Earth very soon, as well.


	15. #15

“And there you have it!”, Lars said. “If we can get her on our side, we’ll be fine.”

“Ally with the Diamonds?”

Bismuth shook her head, leaving her rainbow-coloured hair to sway around her. She crossed her arms and planted her legs firmly – no budging allowed.

“We can’t do that. Over my dead body.”

“I’m gonna have to agree with Bismuth”, Amethyst said. She stood up and stretched her legs. “Damn, all this talk of Diamonds makes my bones feel all weird.”

“Why do you even have bones?”, Pearl asked.

“So they can feel weird during moments like this, P.”

“Oh, that’s just _so_ like you.”

“Can we stay on-topic, please?”, Garnet said, silencing the room. “There’s nothing happening here until we talk it out.”

“Well”, Bismuth said, “you heard them too, didn’t you, Garnet? We got a week. At best. We better start preparing right now.”

“Preparing what? What do you think we can do if they show up like last time? Remember why we won last time? Who won for us?”

A silence permeated the room, growing deep and dreadful.

“And about what Padparadscha said”, she continued, “your contribution is valued, but everyone here must know that the Diamonds are nothing if not unpredictable. Steven and Yellow Diamond had an agreement, they talked, communicated even more than Steven and the other Diamonds did - but Steven himself always said talking to her was hard. I'm not sure if you remember, but the first few times he talked to Yellow Diamond after our peace with the Diamonds, he could barely stand it. She's a despot. A dictator. You think we can reason with her if he had trouble? With all these things in mind we can’t count on her to do anything. Maybe she thinks it’s a bad idea because they lack the manpower to spend on us. Maybe she’d rather gives us less time. Padparadscha, do you know why she disagrees with the plan?”

Padparadscha took a moment to respond. She shook her head. Lars nodded at her to make sure she knew it was fine.

“Well”, Bismuth said, “even more reason for us to mobilise. Call Connie, Nephrite, get the military on our side. We can do this.”

“Steven would want us not to risk anything – or anyone. Steven…”

“Steven’s gone.”

It was Pearl. She stepped out from behind Bismuth’s broad shoulders and stood before Garnet, looking up at her leader. Lars tried to read her expression, but it was anywhere from grieving to determined. Maybe the grief had come to stay, and all her expressions henceforth would be covered by it. Maybe he should say something. He sat down next to Padparadscha and Rhodonite, leaning over to the latter.

“Any thoughts?”

“This is insane”, Rhodonite said.

Pearl and Garnet kept staring each other down. Lapis and Peridot whispered amongst themselves. Amethyst just looked the most distraught, her hair frizzled at the edges, her eyes cast downwards.

“I agree”, Lars said, “but we have to do something about Emerald before they get here.”

Rhodonite nodded, but the movement still seemed unsure. Why couldn’t she just swallow her fears and be there with everyone, ready to either fight or surrender? She was somewhere in-between, at once afraid and following Captain Lars. She looked over to him. There was nothing but determination on his face. Where was he taking it from?

“How do you feel, Lars?”, Rhodonite asked.

Lars just shrugged, keeping a serious gaze on Garnet and Pearl. “We have to do something”, he said, “and soon.”

“Pearl”, Garnet said, reaching out to touch her fellow gem. Pearl shook her head.

“We’ve been thinking about what Steven would want, and yes, that’s important. Steven lead us all this time. In m-more ways than one. But… what now? Do we always ask ourselves what Steven would do?”

Lars felt her words stir something in the room, heard Peridot and Lapis shuffle on the balls of their feet or limb-enhancers. That Pearl of all people said something like this meant it mattered, mattered even more than they could understand at the time. But why Pearl?

“It’s a good idea to have”, Amethyst said, “after all, we made it alright so far.”

“You know why?”, Pearl said. “Because he was Pink Diamond. I was there for his calls, you know. Blue and White never even stopped calling him Pink once. Yellow tried calling him Steven, but it didn't work out too well because they all saw him as another form Pink took - a game, as White would call it. The only reason they didn't hurt us while he was alive was because he kept us protected. We... we needed and still need him more than we could ever... ever...”

Her words were lost in a series of small sobs, and from her struggling body and the way she tried to bury her fingers in her stomach, it was clear that Pearl didn't want them to come, but come they did. They even seemed to drown out the ocean waves for a second. Garnet and Amethyst wanted to come closer, but Pearl extended a hand keeping them at bay. This is mine, it seemed to say, my burden to bear.

"Pearl", Amethyst said, "please, this - this is just stupid! Let us help you!"

Antoine looked up from his laptop. Lars gulped. Pearl's hand fell to her side.

Rhodonite whispered “Maybe we should get out of here” to Lars.

He shook his head. No, this concerned them just as much. Whatever decision or lackthereof would fall today meant the world and more. Pearl continued.

“We can’t let this happen. What if they come back for the Earth? What if they don’t honour any of the treaties? We’ll be discarded like some used-up mine and they’ll move on. It’ll be like none of this ever mattered at all.”

“So far, they only want the gem.”

Garnet took a long look around the room, giving Lars a particular moment of her attention. He squirmed in his seat. What was going on? Were they fighting? Were they agreeing? He felt the need to stand up, say something, rally the troops – be a captain. But all he could do was wait for Garnet and Pearl to talk. Even Bismuth had taken a backseat, listening to the two gems in the room’s middle intently. All the while, the beach waves hit the shore and Antoine’s hands kept typing. Garnet’s voice rose like a song from their middle.

“What do we have to gain by fighting? Making a stand? The only thing we’ll gain is painful experience, and we’ll lose a lot more than we can ever recover from, Pearl.”

“Garnet, I…”

“Pearl.” Garnet made her visor disappear. Her eyes looked down at the floor, searching for the right words, then back at Pearl. “I understand what you’re trying to do. I know you’re scared you won’t be able to protect his legacy. Earth was his home and you want him to stay here.”

“That’s… Garnet, I…”

“But. But, Pearl. Our lives are on the line here. I need you to get that if we fight, we might not come back to grieve. And Steven’s still here. Can’t you feel it? Here? In this room? Where he sat on the couch and played video games, or where he had calls with Yellow and Blue Diamond when they wanted to talk? If we go to war, we might not come back at all. If you don’t believe me, let me show you.”

Garnet walked up to Pearl and kissed her gem. She fell to the ground, slumped with the sudden knowledge hitting her all at once – all the myriad of ways things could go wrong Steven had told Lars about when he’d asked years ago. Lars stood up and walked down the stairs, approached Pearl until he was close enough to help her get up.

“Thank you”, she said.

“Pearl”, he whispered, “what did you see?”

Pearl straightened her back. She looked at Lars the same way she had when she hugged him crying – there was nothing there but memory and grief, no semblance of the Pearl he had met centuries ago. If it was still there, she did a good job hiding it.

“Sorry about Emerald”, she whispered. “But they might not free her even if we comply, and I think you should know that. But I can’t sit by here.”

“I really can’t either, but don’t you think you’re being a little rash here? Pearl, just – let’s take a day to think it over.”

The room between their faces felt so quiet and intimate, as if they were the only ones in the room for a second. She broke it quickly, looking Past Lars right at Garnet.

“Garnet is right, our chances seem slim”, she said then. “Even if Yellow Diamond doesn’t join Blue, we might struggle severely with whatever they throw at us. But I will fight. I can’t not do it. I wouldn’t be able to stand here or talk to any of you if I didn’t. There are things that… I’m sorry. I really am. But I can’t. And you are all welcome to join me.”

She cast one last, imploring look at Lars and turned around, walking towards the Warp-Pad with more confidence in her step than she possible could have had. Bismuth followed, then Lapis. Finally, after a long moment of consideration and finger-biting, Peridot went, too. She faced the room again, the many eyes of the off-colours, Amethyst and Garnet that had watched her leave.

“He would’ve done the same for us, even though he knew it was wrong”, she said. “And… I can’t just watch. Even though I want to. Stars, do I want to.”

“Peridot”, Lapis said, “you’re braver than you think.”

“Nah”, Peridot answered, stepping onto the warp-pad, “I’m just really dumb when you get down to it.”

Garnet and Pearl stared at each other before the pad activated. Pearl shook her head so quickly Lars barely noticed the tears.

“If they steal him, I won’t be able to take it. I really won’t, Garnet. If they… if they shatter me right then and there, if they come down from the sky and crush me… I’ll be fine.”

“Pearl. Please. Let’s talk, let’s be rational about this, you can’t just throw your life away after he…”

The warp-pad activated and left only silence in its wake. Silence and Lars. He adjusted his cape, opened and closed the top button on his pink collar, reached inside of his hair into the vacuum inside. He felt the eyes of his crew on him, waiting. Antoine closed his Laptop and walked to the door.

“If you need any military help”, he said, “I’ll see what I can do. But considering there might not be a problem if you stood down… I don’t know.”

He left, leaving the door ajar. Lars followed, walking past Garnet and Amethyst who were sitting next to each other in silence, Garnet with her head buried deeply in her hands.

“Wait, Lars”, Amethyst said. “What are you guys gonna do?”

Lars looked at his crew. The Rutiles, arms hanging by their side, but eyes awake and ready. Rhodonite, hugging herself again, not looking directly at him, instead staring at the spectres of the gems who’d left with the warp-pad. Fluorite, waiting patiently for him to speak. And Padparadscha, looking just the slightest bit lost.

“We’re gonna to talk to our other crew”, he said, “see what we can do before the Diamonds get here.”

The Rutiles and Fluorite nodded, but Rhodonite gave him an expression of blank fear. Where was he taking them? What was he doing? Couldn’t they just stay out of this, at least for once? She hurried after Lars, the moonlit beach shimmering silver to their right.

“Captain”, she said, “surely… surely you side with Garnet on this one, right?”

“There really are no sides here other than the Crystal Gems and the Diamonds”, he said.

Fluorite gave a small nod of agreement and spoke slowly, her words almost washed ashore by the cadence of her voice.

“They. Did. A. Lot. Of. Good. For. Us”, she said, wrapping one of her gloved hands around Rhodonite’s arm. “We. Have. To. Repay. Them.”

“But there’s no way we can face two Diamonds!”, Rhodonite said.

“One Diamond, if we play our cards right”, Lars said. He didn’t look back. He strode calmly forward to where the Sun Incinerator stood among the waves, parked there by Rhodonite a mere hour ago. It seemed like a decade. Then again, he’d lost all sense of time after Sadie, and now, after Steven, it was bound to get worse.

But later. He’d deal with it later. Now, there were things to do, and there was a captain he had to be.

“Lars!”

Rhodonite stopped in her tracks, the rest of the Off-Colours following suit, with Lars finally turning around to face her. There were tears glistening in all four of her eyes, painting small streaks of water across her purple face. If a heart still remained in Lars’s body, it stopped for a second right then and there. Where was he going? Why? And why couldn’t he get the last look Pearl gave him out of his head? He looked at Rhodonite for what felt like the first time in years. She was shaking.

“I’m scared”, she said. “I really am. I’m sorry. I know I’m a space pirate and I’m not supposed to be scared. But this… this… Promise me one thing. All of us make it out of this.”

“Rhodonite, do you know what you’re asking of him?”, Rut said.

Tile nodded. “He’s the Captain. We’ll be fine.”

Rhodonite shook her head. Her tears fell to the ground in a small circle around her.

“I know! I’m aware! But…”

Lars stood before her, barely a step away. She looked down at him, but it felt like up, it always did after that time in the caverns. Why couldn’t she ever make anyone look up at her? She hugged herself a little tighter with two of her arms, the others wiping at her face.

“I’m sorry, I…”

“Hey, Rhod.”

Lars extended a hand. She took it. He pressed it close to his heart, where he was still wearing the small dark-blue star, the one he proudly presented at the funeral, almost like a medal. He smiled then, brighter than the moon.

“I promise all of you will be just fine. I won’t let a single thing happen to any of you.”

“A vision!”, Padparadscha said. “The Captain will say something grand!”

“You bet I will, Pad!”, Lars shot back. Laughter. It was why they loved Padparadscha - her presence made everything brighter.

And while they walked back to the ship, Lars loudly proclaiming they’d leave when the sun was setting tomorrow so they better gather their things, one thing didn’t let go of Rhodonite.

She watched Lars a little closer then, standing closer, making sure he felt as secure as she could make him feel while he checked the upgrades Peridot had installed on the ship. A new, faster way to get into the Star Skipper, a new wider screen, a boost to their radio signals and a wall of data keeping them from being listened in on, and, most importantly, two new laser cannons, stronger shields and improved Nova Thrusters able to function for a longer time. Lars slaved over the details, reading through the notes Peridot had left together with Rhodonite while the other Off-Colours went back to the hotel to enjoy one more evening in Beach City.  All the while, the one phrase that had tipped her off, that had made her ears perk up more than she thought they could, kept replaying in her head.

I won’t let a single thing happen to any of _you_.

They worked until morning.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We'll be leaving our little Beach House soon, so buckle up!
> 
> As always, your comments absolutely make my day. I look forward to reading all of them and responding, though it might take a little time this time. University has started up again and I'm busy with adjusting to no longer sleeping past 10.


End file.
